by Linda Welch
“I know. Boom.”
“Simple but effective,” Mike said.
I beetled my brows. “You don’t have to sound so admiring.”
“These guys were amateurs,” Larsen said. “The device in Mortensen’s apartment should have blown when he plugged in the coffeemaker - ”
Royal interrupted. “I did notice the plug was not properly seated in the outlet. I thought I must have jogged it loose when I cleaned the counter.”
“But it didn’t,” Larsen continued. “He was well away when it detonated.”
“I went to the door to see where Tiff got to with that creamer.”
I knew different. His sensitive demon ears heard an unfamiliar click when he plugged in his coffeemaker. His speed saved his life.
“My coffeemaker. . . ?”
Larsen nodded.
I went to the counter and looked at the back of the machine. The plug hung half out the electrical outlet. I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. I would not have heard a strange click. My first cup of the day would have been my last.
Larsen handed me the outlet cover. “You might want to put this back on.”
“How did they get in?” Royal asked.
Larsen pointed to the back door. “Picked the lock.” He turned to me. “You’re security stinks.”
Not the first time I heard that. Royal liked to remind me of it, often. “I don’t have any.”
“Exactly.”
I backed up a step and sank down on a kitchen chair. I felt kind of weird, out of place in my own home. I didn’t know what to do next, if anything.
Royal put one hand on Larsen’s shoulder, the other on Mike’s. “Are you through here?” he hinted.
“Sure,” Mike said. “Tiff, come down tomorrow morning. Larsen is using our office.”
I let my head sag on one side and made a face. “Mike, I don’t know anything.”
Not yet, anyhow.
“Come down anyway.”
I grimaced and nodded. Mike and Larsen left.
With detective and agent gone, Jack and Mel converged on me, but I backed up to the hall where Royal stood at the open front door. “They’re fine,” I told him. “Hysterical, but fine.”
He didn’t look impressed. How could two shades not be fine? It’s not as if intruders could hurt them.
I went to him and leaned on his chest. His arms clasped me. “You’re going to stay here, aren’t you?”
“I was thinking The Hilton. They serve breakfast in bed.”
I hung back in his arms. “I’ll get you break. . . . Yeah, and I hear it’s a real good breakfast too.”
His smile lit his face while sunlight coming through the door made his copper-gold hair glimmer as if limned by water. “I can cook breakfast here. I’d like to stay, if you have room for me in your bed.”
I felt a wee bit mushy. “Always.”
Mike and Larsen stood in my front yard; as they and assorted police officers looked on, Royal cupped my face in his hands and we had a nice, long, passionate smooch.
***
“Two men, in the middle of the night,” Mel babbled, hands flapping all over the place.
I opened the backdoor for a very displeased Mac, although it’s hard to tell with Mac, since displeased is one of his favorite states of mind. “What did they look like?”
“It was dark,” from Jack. “Night is like that, you know, dark.”
“How do you know they were men?”
“They wore tight clothes.” Mel paused thoughtfully, went on, “Skintight.”
“One went down to the breaker box in the basement while the other fiddled in the kitchen cupboard. Sounded like he used an electric saw,” Jack said.
“Sounded?”
“It was. I watched,” said Mel, “while Mr. Big and Bold stayed in the basement. As if an explosion could hurt us. . . .”
Jack inspected his cuticles. “You never know.”
I met Royal’s gaze with reluctance, not wanting to see the expression in his dark-copper eyes. Now the cops were gone, he would let his anger show.
He clenched his hands around mine so strongly I thought my knuckles would pop. “Tell me.”
I repeated what Jack and Mel said.
Some of the tension eased from his body. He slumped and loosened the death-grip on my hands. “I don’t know why I thought . . . Morté Tescién. They would not use unsophisticated methods. They would be more direct.”
I dragged my eyes from his, seeing not the kitchen but a cavern-like basement in Bel-Athaer, a headless body, the demons streaming away, leaving Royal and me to escape, but watching us with angry, smoldering eyes. Not all submitted to the High House when it came down on Morté Tescién. Some went into the hills. They were nothing more than bandits now.
I’d not forgotten them, but time passing can lull you into a false sense of security. They blamed me as much as Royal for Kien’s death. Royal thought they finally came after us. Did we need to look over our shoulders in two directions, for Gelpha and human assassins? Who in the human world wanted to kill us?
Epilogue
Royal crouched at the wood-burning stove as he expertly inserted another log and closed the glass-fronted door. The dancing flames cast warm orange light over his shoulders and made his hair bright as the sun. The scars on his back stood out, smooth white seams on his pale-copper skin.
We could do without the stove, but he’d been dying to light it for days. I didn’t tell him I left the windows open all day when we were out so the room would be nicely chilled when we got home, giving him a reason to light a fire.
He came back to the couch and settled beside me. I rested my cheek in the
hollow of his shoulder, my arm over his smooth, naked chest. He yawned.
“Is my big bad demon tired?”
“Your big bad demon’s had hardly a wink of sleep these two weeks.”
“And whose fault is that?” I said, all sympathy.
He forwent The Hilton’s comfort to stay with me and remained when the Fire Marshall gave the okay for him to return to his apartment a week ago. I didn’t cook him breakfast. He took over my kitchen and my poor refrigerator wheezed with the strain of trying to contain all the food he stuffed in there. I was relieved to have him with me. Irrational, I know, but I shied clear of electric outlet for days. I couldn’t touch the appliances I keep in a cabinet because I don’t use them every day. I tackled cans with a regular can opener instead of my electric model. I heated my frozen waffles in the microwave instead of the toaster. I even eyed my electric toothbrush with suspicion, even though it’s always plugged in. Royal checked the place over and tried to reassure me, but I needed time.
And I can’t forget if Royal were human he would not have felt a slight resistance as he plugged his coffeemaker in the outlet to make me a drink, or heard that tiny click; could not have zipped out of there barely ahead of the explosion.
Because the three floors of his building are separate, self-contained units with no connecting vents or inside stairwell, the shop and his bedroom escaped the smoke and water damage, but his living space was uninhabitable. Designed to destroy what - rather, who - stood close to the bomb, the damage from the explosion wasn’t that bad. Smoke damage was another matter.
I didn’t know disaster cleanup is so complicated. Everything containing plastics is tossed. Out went Royal’s home entertainment center. Oh dear. They took every appliance in his kitchen, and of course the explosion destroyed his cabinets. Royal no longer had a kitchen. When the local team wanted to toss his giant Buddha and he had to explain it is not plastic, but Asian lacquer-work, he politely dismissed them and called in the team from San Diego. They shipped his precious Buddha, the lacquer bar and his wall art to San Diego for professional restoration. And the out-of-state team knew how to treat old brickwork and antique fittings.
They stripped the space and took everything salvageable away for cleaning. He paid them double the rate to speed up their operation and get everything b
ack to normal. That meant letting them in the apartment at the crack of dawn and closing up late at night, and when not there, he stayed with me. He catnapped during the day, but I don’t think he slept at night. He stayed awake, watching over me.
That had to end. His apartment was back together again. He should go home and enjoy it.
He yawned again. I yawned with him.
“Are you sure about this?” he asked.
This would be my first evening alone in the house. “I’ll be fine.”
“Because I can stay. I want to.”
He wanted to stay for my sake, because he feared those hit-men would come back and he would not be here to protect me. But we had to try and get back to what passed for normal lives. Surely he hankered for his own place, and I know he’d had enough of Jack, Mel and me having cozy chats. I would too, when I had to listen to my girlfriend go over her adventures for the third time.
I slithered around on the seat and took his face between my palms, gazing in his serious copper eyes. “I know you worry, and I worry about you, but we can’t be together every minute of the day. We can’t let them have that kind of power over us.”
Gareth suggested Royal and I live in Bel-Athaer, in the High House, safe from human assassins. But, spend an indefinite amount of time in protective custody? I would rather take my chances here, in Clarion.
Royal put his hands over mine, leaned in and kissed me, a gentle, loving kiss. Then he stroked my hair away from my face, a depth of concern in his eyes.
He had been so gentle with me since his return from Bel-Athaer. My cracked ribs could account for that initially, but he still treated me like china which will break if held too tight. Strangely, I also sensed a barely restrained fierceness in his touch, as if held at bay with inhuman control. He often seemed preoccupied, and sometimes I caught him watching me with an expression I couldn’t fathom. The next second, he was all smiles.
I thought our recent brushes with death reminded us of our mortality, and what we could lose.
***
Mac and I strolled the Claverley Trail below the benches, an area of mossy grass two-hundred-feet wide and five miles long. The place is a mass of wild flowers in spring, but now fallen leaves littered brown, dying grass. Unusual rock formations and small trees warped by winter’s ferocity dot the area. Rock-face soars on the east side, where the hike and bike trails begin. The ground drops sharply on the west to a chain-link fence; below that are the roofs of homes belonging to people who can afford to build on premium plots this far up the mountainside.
A dirt and rock trail meanders back and forth over the grass between trees and clusters of rock, and you watch where you put your feet lest you trip or stub your toes. But I don’t worry about that - Mac moves about as slowly as four short legs and big paws can. There are too many tantalizing smells and he wants to investigate every one. He also has to challenge every other dog on the trail. He lets the small dogs off with a snarled warning, but I have to hold him back from big dogs. I think he has a Napoleon complex.
The trail is popular with those who want to amble rather than hike, so I didn’t walk alone. I nodded, said hi, wrestled Mac away from other dogs and apologized on his behalf. I tried to admire the scenery.
I still felt vulnerable. A few people in the vicinity are no deterrent to a marksman with a high-powered rifle.
I pressed my left arm to my side to feel the bulk and weight of my Ruger in its shoulder holster. I watched Mac for any indication he heard or sensed something hostile, other than the frequent, imaginary threats to his canine superiority.
Why are you alone out here, Tiff? Because you’re a damned, stubborn fool.
I clenched my teeth. I would not turn tail and run back home. Think of something else.
So, naturally, my thoughts turned to another unfathomable, unresolved subject.
I have a file on the Dark Cousins, but not in a drawer or on the computer. It’s where it can never be read by another, in my mind. I added what I recently learned to that little cache of information.
“History tells us we can defeat the Dark Cousins . . . long ago we slew Dark Cousins . . . on our own ground, when we massed against them.” Why did they fight? What did they fight over?
I think Dark Cousins once lived in Bel-Athaer. Gelpha forced them out. No. They made a pact. Dark Cousins agreed to leave Bel-Athaer. Why? What could make creatures with their superior strength and abilities capitulate?
Maybe they were outnumbered. Those movies in which the lone warrior kills hundreds of adversaries - don’t believe it. The most skilled fighters can be overcome by sheer numbers, it’s happened countless times in world history.
The Gelpha ousted the Cousins, yet they still intimidate Gelpha. When Royal and I, Gia and Daven went to the High House, the Cousins made hundreds of Gelpha in the great hall back down, cowed by a look from their eyes.
“We were warned to always be on our guard.” Gelpha didn’t trust Cousins to keep their word. Did they think the Dark Cousins would try to infiltrate Bel-Athaer?
The Cousins, as a race, are ancient. According to Royal, Gia is a youngster. Like Gelpha, they can have children with humans. Is anything of the Cousins passed down to their half-breed children in blood and genes?
We heal at a rate your mind cannot encompass. Gia was right, the Dark Cousins are so close to humans in appearance, I tend to place human restrictions on them. It makes me wonder if I see them as they really are, or do they wear a human skin like I wear a sweater and blue-jeans? It makes me wonder what is beneath their skin.
Why did Gia tell me? “Knowing our Miss Banks, do you doubt she will eventually reach a conclusion, the correct conclusion?” Something about that didn’t ring true. Gia didn’t give out sensitive information, for any reason. She had a motive.
I felt it in my gut, both thrill and foreboding. One of these days not too far in the future I would solve the mystery of the Dark Cousins.
A sharp little wind gusted over me. I paused and looked up to see a cloudbank smother the peaks. A storm rolled in, fast. I stopped walking and made Mac’s leash taut. “Come on, boy. Time to go home.”
I turned in the opposite direction, but Mac dug in his feet, looking back down the trail as if to say but we haven’t been down there yet! I tugged gently on the leash. “I know, but we’ll get wet if we don’t head back.”
The clouds came lower, bringing a light rain. You would think the way Mac hates getting wet, he would pick up his pace, but he put his ears back on his skull and walked slower, so I did too. That, or carry him, and Scotties are hefty little animals.
As we passed a copse, I looked at the man-sized slab of quartz among the trees; seams of red, bronze, brown, cream, gold, copper, a streak of black near the top. The Clarion Trails Volunteers put a fence around to stop people chipping off pieces, but they climb over.
The rain hit the striated side as sun still shone in the west, making the rock and air around it sparkle. I stared, and like a Magic Eye picture the colors fused into something else. My imagination took flight. For a brief moment I saw a tall shape with skin like gilded leather, hair like metallic threads, eyes of faceted black gemstones.
Mac growled deep in his throat.
“Stupid,” I chided. “It’s just a rock.”
The sky darkened, the storm churned down the mountainside. Mac yipped, and dragging me, took along down the trail as if all the demons in hell were on our tails.
Perhaps they were.
***
I burst through the front door to the hall. As I shook my damp shoes off and hung my coat, Mac trundled in the kitchen leaving smeared paw prints in his wake. I heard him shake. Great. I should have hung onto his leash and kept him in the hall till I could towel him down.
I used paper towel instead, ignoring the slitty-eyed glare and lip curled to show the tips of Mac’s big canines. When the towel absorbed the moisture on his rough brindle hair, he shook again and looked wet as before.
Mel and Jack were at the
backdoor. I walked over there dabbing at my hair with a sheet of paper towel. “What’s up?”
“Something out there’s burning,” Jack said as he peered at the dim backyard.
“In the rain?”
“Not raining now.”
I pulled the neck of my wet shirt away from my damp skin. Damn firecrackers! Kids here think tossing a handful of snaps in your yard is highly entertaining. They buy as many as they can when they’re legal and hoard them through the year. As my dog snuffles around out there, I don’t take kindly to firecrackers in my yard.
I knew where the brats were, too. Throwing their ammo in the damp grass wouldn’t work, so they climbed the wall and aimed at the old metal garbage can in the northeast corner of the yard.
I groaned and headed for the kitchen cabinet where I keep my big flashlight. A spent firecracker couldn’t get anything alight on wet ground, but Mac might decide to chomp on it. “I’d better check out there. Did you hear a bang? Was it a flare, or kind of sparkly?”
”Both,” Jack said.
Mel shook her head. “It looked like a man, burning.”
Acknowledgements
A huge debt of thanks is owed to LK. I trust she knows how deeply I appreciate the many ways in which she’s helped and supported me because this page isn’t long enough to list them all. Glinda, Don, Sharon and Paula, for casting their eagle eyes over this book, giving me some super suggestions and pointing out the nasty little boo-boos which would have made readers scratch their heads in mystification. Ryan, for showing me a side to a character I should have seen myself. My husband Tom, for understanding I’ve better things to do with my time than housework, and for not commenting on the dust bunnies and grubby bits. My wonderful, wonderful readers - without them there would not have been a second book, let alone a third.
