by Tina Folsom
A hand on his butt pulled him from his thoughts. “I guess it’s not working for every warrior, is it?” Kim didn’t quite manage to suppress her chuckle. The little minx was making fun of him.
“You’ll pay for that later,” he murmured back. “A warrior doesn’t tolerate insolence.”
Arrived at the landing, Manus turned to his left and marched toward Kilgore’s office. In the upper corridor, the light was burning too. It wasn’t unusual. Most businesses left the main lights on to deter burglars. At the door to Kilgore’s office, Manus stopped and looked over his shoulder to Kim, who’d followed close behind.
“I’ll open up from inside,” he said, then turned back to the door. He took a step closer when he noticed that the door wasn’t closed. “Shit!” he hissed under his breath.
“What?”
He whirled his head to Kim and put a finger over his lips to silence her. Then he pointed to the ajar door. Kim followed his direction. Her eyes widened. He motioned her to remain where she was, then walked through the door without opening it any wider. If somebody was inside Kilgore’s office, he had to surprise them.
Inside the office, it was dark. The blinds were open, allowing the faint lights from the parking lot to penetrate, throwing long shadows into the room. Manus allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness and scanned the area. At first glance, nothing appeared out of order and the office was just as messy as earlier in the day. He listened for any sounds and held his breath to be able to detect if anybody else was breathing. But complete silence surrounded him. He was alone. Whoever had left the door open, and he didn’t think Kilgore had been so careless, was long gone.
He walked back to the door and opened it. “Nobody here. You can come in,” he announced to Kim.
Hesitantly, she entered the office and pulled the door shut behind her.
“I’ll close the blinds, so we can use some light to do our search,” he said and walked to the window. He passed the desk. Suddenly, his foot caught on something, and he would have stumbled had he not gripped the edge of the desk to brace himself. His gaze flew to the floor. “Fuck!”
“What? What is it?” Kim asked in panic, the sound of her footfalls indicating that she was coming closer.
“Don’t!” he warned her. But it was too late. She was already shoulder to shoulder with him.
She gasped. “Oh my God!”
At Manus’s feet, Kilgore’s body lay frozen in death. He’d been stabbed in the heart. Manus crouched down to examine the wound. It was the one that had killed him in the end, but it wasn’t the only one. Kilgore bore defensive wounds on his arms and torso.
“He fought with his attacker.”
“Who would do such a thing?” Kim mused.
He looked up at her. “Would you close the blinds, please?”
Kim sprang into action and closed the blinds of the large window, allowing almost complete darkness to descend on the office. “Done.”
Manus pulled out his flashlight and switched it on. “Thanks.” He ran the light over Kilgore’s body.
Kim stepped around him from the other side, where the chair had been pushed against the wall, and put her hand on the armrest for support as she bent down. Surprised that she didn’t recoil from the dead body, Manus looked up at her.
“He looks scared.”
Manus cast a glance at Kilgore’s face. His eyes were open, and Kim was right: there was fear in his eyes. “He knew what was coming.”
“Demon?”
“Would be my guess. He was stabbed. Demons always carry daggers with them.”
“But my mother wasn’t stabbed.”
“No. There’s another way a demon kills. One that leaves no outside trace.”
“How did he do it? The demon that killed my mother. What did she feel?”
Surprised at the question, Manus sat back on his haunches and sighed. “Kim, it doesn’t help you to—”
“No, please, tell me. I need to know. What did she feel? Did she suffer?”
Manus let out a long, deep breath. “Are you sure you want to know?”
She nodded wordlessly.
“Okay… A demon has to feed. We know they eat human food to nourish their bodies, but they need something else to feed their demon existence. They take a human’s lifeforce, their essence, by sucking it out of their mouth or nose. I’ve seen it once. It’s like a mist, like a fine fog that emanates from the human. The demon takes it in. It strengthens him, gives him power.”
“How do they get to the lifeforce? How can it just leave a human’s body?”
“By fear alone. They aren’t called the Demons of Fear for nothing. They frighten the human so they can take their lifeforce.”
“And the pain? Is there pain?”
“Physical pain?” Manus paused for a moment. “Not in the true sense of the word. Physically, your mother wouldn’t have felt much. It’s mostly psychological. The body itself doesn’t experience true pain as the lifeforce is extracted.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because we’ve encountered people who’ve had it done to them.”
“They survived?”
Manus nodded. “Because we got to them before the demon took all of their lifeforce. Sometimes, they only take enough to feed and leave the human alive.” He reached for Kim’s hand and squeezed it. “Your mother was frightened of him, but she wasn’t in pain when she died. I promise you that.”
Kim sniffled. “Thank you.” She rubbed her nose with the back of her hand, then pointed to Kilgore. “So, you think this wasn’t a demon kill?”
Manus didn’t answer immediately. He illuminated the area around the body with his flashlight. Papers were scattered on the floor, a water bottle had spilled and soaked the carpet, writing utensils lay under the desk. Something was peeking out from underneath Kilgore’s right hip. With his free hand, Manus rolled the body toward the window, just enough so he could see what was underneath the dead man.
“A letter opener,” Kim said.
Manus took it and let the light shine on the blade. “With green demon blood on its tip.” He looked up at Kim. “He injured the demon who killed him.”
“Why would the demons want to kill the translator?” Kim asked.
Manus rose. “Because he knew what your mother had given him to translate. And they didn’t want us to find out.”
“But why now? I thought you said we weren’t followed.”
“We weren’t.” He pointed at Kilgore’s body. “Which means Simon Kilgore told them that we came looking for it. He warned them that we’re onto them.”
“You’re saying he worked for them?”
“Possibly.”
“Then why would they kill him?”
“Demons have no loyalties. He’d become a liability. They had to get rid of him.”
Manus noticed her swallowing hard. “You think they took whatever Kilgore wrote down about the translation?”
“Most likely. But demons aren’t perfect. They might have missed something. Let’s look.”
Manus stepped over the body to look to the side of the desk where he’d seen the computer tower earlier in the day. The old-fashioned machine lay on its side, its metal housing missing, the interior smashed up as if somebody had taken a sledgehammer to it. Manus examined it more closely.
“Motherboard’s a goner.” He knew enough about IT to know there was no getting at the data that was saved on the hard drive.
“Maybe there’s a paper file,” Kim suggested.
Manus scanned the desk and looked at the different trays. Despite the mess in his office, Kilgore had a system. Manus pointed the flashlight at the file drawers that stood along one wall and read the labels.
“Alphabetical files,” Manus noted, then looked at the trays on the desk again. “And dated trays, going back a couple of months at least.” He looked at Kim. “Go through the file cabinets. Start with B for Britton, then N for Nancy. I’ll go through these trays in case he hadn’t had a chance to file
your mother’s translation yet.”
Kim followed his command, pulled out her own flashlight, and went to work. Manus plowed through the files, one after the other, but it became clear very quickly that Nancy’s file wasn’t among the ones on the desk.
“Anything?” He looked over his shoulder.
Kim closed the drawer marked with a large N. “Nothing. There’s an empty hanger in the Bs where Britton should be located, but it’s empty.” She sighed and leaned back against a side table, clearly frustrated. “We’re too late.”
“There are other ways of finding out what your mother found,” Manus said though he was just as frustrated as Kim. If only they’d gotten here a few hours earlier.
“Let’s go,” Kim suggested and turned, walking toward the door.
The light of Manus’s flashlight illuminated her back. Simultaneously, he heard a siren in the background.
“Fuck!”
29
Kim spun around, alarmed by Manus’s curse. “What?”
He pointed at her. “Your clothes… they’re stained with green demon blood.”
“Yuck!” she let out. Could anything else go wrong today? “This had better come out in the wash.” She pivoted back to the door but didn’t get far.
Manus laid his hands on her shoulders. “That’s not the point.”
“Well, it is for me.”
He turned her to face him, but she had a hard time making out his face. He’d switched off his flashlight. “Kim, I can’t make demon blood invisible.”
“Then we stay visible,” she said. “There’s not much going on out there anyway.”
“There is.” Manus let go of her shoulders and walked to the window, where he peeked through the blinds. “Police have just arrived.”
“What? How do they know?” She pointed in the general direction of Kilgore’s body. “There’s no way.”
Manus lifted his hand to stop her. “They’re not here for Kilgore. It looks like they’re here for the Chinese place downstairs. Probably a fight.” He turned away from the window and walked toward her again.
“But we’ve gotta get out of here. If they somehow come up and find Kilgore’s body, we’re screwed.”
Manus took her hand. “They won’t have a reason to come up here. But I agree we’ve gotta leave. And we can’t afford to be seen by anybody because tomorrow, when all the other businesses open again, somebody will find Kilgore’s body, and we don’t want sketches of us out there as suspected murderers.”
“But you just said yourself that you can’t make me fully invisible, not with the demon blood on me.” Her throat constricted at the thought that she wouldn’t get away.
“We need new clothes for you.”
“Are you saying you’ll leave me here on my own to go back to my place and—”
“There’s a dry cleaner downstairs. We’ll find something there.” He tugged at her hand. “Come.”
Relieved, she went with him. They walked down the stairs, Kim staying as close to the wall as possible, so if somebody looked through the glass doors into the lobby, the chance of them seeing green dots floating in the air was minimal.
When they reached the foot of the stairs, Kim was glad to see that none of the police officers outside was in sight.
“This way,” Manus instructed and hurried to a door with a sign saying Employees Only. “I’ll go through and open from the inside. But you’ll have to give me a sign that it’s clear and nobody is looking into the lobby when I’m opening the door. Okay?”
“Got it.”
A second later, she watched Manus step through the door and disappear. She heard a lock flip from the inside and quickly flicked her gaze to the entrance doors. “Still clear,” she said loud enough for Manus to hear, but not loud enough for anybody outside to register the sound.
The door opened toward her, and she stepped aside, then slid through the opening while Manus pulled the door closed behind her and flicked the lock shut.
It was dark, but they couldn’t risk switching on a light or using their flashlights because the dry cleaning business had a glass front. If one of the police officers passed the store front, they would notice the light and take action.
“Let’s go in the back,” Manus suggested and took her hand to lead her through the rows of clothing hanging from long conveyor lines, all wrapped in plastic.
When they reached the back of the business, Kim could make out a large folding table, several stools and benches as well as cabinets built along the back wall. Above were several windows located close to the ceiling, letting in some light from the street running along the back of the strip mall. Nobody could see into the building from there, and the rows and rows of clothing provided ample coverage from the other side.
“Get undressed,” Manus ordered and reached for a plastic wrapper. “Put your stained clothes in one of these. I’ll toss them in the trash.”
“Can’t we just wash the stains out here?” She pointed to a sink and various spray bottles. “I’m sure they have stain removers here. I mean, it’s a dry cleaner.”
“Sorry. But demon blood doesn’t come out.”
She sighed.
Manus turned around and walked toward the rows of clothing. “Let me find you something suitable to wear.”
While she heard him rummage through the dry-cleaned clothes, Kim shucked her long-sleeved shirt and shimmied out of her favorite jeans. The demon blood had even soaked through to her camisole, so she pulled it over her head and tossed it on the heap.
More sirens from outside sent a shiver down her spine. It was time to get out of here. Hurriedly, she stuffed the stained clothes into the plastic wrapper and made a knot at the top to close it. At the sound of some rustling behind her, she spun around.
Manus stood right in front of her, several hangers with clothes wrapped in plastic in one hand. He just stared at her, and she was suddenly fully aware of her nakedness. Another shiver raced down her spine, but this one wasn’t caused by fear.
When Manus didn’t say anything, she said, “I heard more sirens. Are more police arriving?”
He shook his head. “Worse. DEA. Looks like it’s a drug raid.”
“Shit!” she cursed under her breath.
The barking of a dog cut through the silence that followed.
“And they brought dogs.”
Instinctively, Kim wrapped her arms around her torso. “They aren’t gonna come in here, are they?”
“They have no reason to. They’re focused on the Chinese restaurant. I guess they’re involved with the Triad or some other Chinese drug gang. But I’m afraid we have to stay here until they’re all gone. If we try to sneak by the police now, the dogs will go nuts. They’ll smell us. Besides, with so much law enforcement out there, I’ll never be able to open a door for you without them noticing it. And while I can keep us both invisible, you can’t walk through a wall. There’s no way out until they’re gone. Sorry.”
“How long?”
“A few hours for sure.”
The thought of waiting in a dry cleaners shop with a dead body above them and law enforcement with a K9 unit searching the strip mall for drugs suffused her with fear. At the same time, she realized what Manus was risking for her. “Without me, you’d be able to leave through the back wall.” She motioned toward it. “But with me, you’re stuck. I’m sorry.”
Manus reached for her arms and pulled her against his chest. “Don’t be. I couldn’t imagine anybody else I’d want to be stuck with at the dry cleaners.” He chuckled. “In the dark. Naked.” His mouth was suddenly at her ear. “I don’t know about you, but I could think of something to while away the time.”
Kim put one arm around his back and slid her hand to his nape. “You’re a scoundrel, Manus. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you called the police with a tip yourself.”
“You have a vivid imagination, Kim. Why don’t you put it to better use and hop onto that table, so I can have my way with you, hmm?”
&n
bsp; Her entire body tingled at the knowledge that Manus was intending to seduce her. At a dry cleaners of all places! She’d never done anything that forbidden. Never done anything that dangerous. Surrounded by law enforcement, in the middle of a drug raid, a dead body only a floor away—no, she’d never done anything like that. It made her feel daring.
She brought her lips to Manus’s ear. “You want to fuck me?”
He let out a ragged breath and pressed his rock-hard cock against her groin. “That answer your question?”
She sucked his earlobe between her lips and gave it a tender bite. “Then you should just take what you want. Any which way you want it.” She’d never given any man such license. Such free rein.
“You sure you wanna give me such liberty?”
She slid her hand down to his pants and laid it over the heavy bulge there. “If you don’t, then I’ll do what I want with you.”
“And what might that involve?”
“Slow torture,” she murmured into his ear.
He chuckled softly. “In that case, why don’t I take the reins, and we’ll reserve slow torture for a night when we have more leisure?”
Manus didn’t wait for an answer but instead lifted her onto the table. Kim didn’t protest. With expert hands, Manus stripped her of her panties and put them aside. Then he stepped back and undressed, first taking off his shirt, then his boots, his socks, and pants, and finally his boxer briefs.
Despite the dim light, she could see all she needed to see. His cock was hard and heavy, his gaze penetrating and filled with lust. When she felt his hands on her knees, pushing her legs apart, she let out a sigh. With his hands still on her knees, he rubbed his cock against her wet folds. A moan escaped her. There would be no foreplay tonight. She didn’t mind. She couldn’t wait to feel him inside her, impaling her, taking her.
With one thrust, he seated himself deep inside her, stretching her interior muscles to their capacity. It felt like he was even bigger tonight than before. Even harder. She clutched his shoulders and drew herself closer to him. Her breasts whipped, brushing against his chest.
