by Linda Welch
Five minutes later we went through another doorway and ended up outside.
I barely had time to absorb our surroundings before Royal grabbed my hand and we picked up speed, but I did see grass, trees and shrubbery which looked no different from in the good old U. S. of A. The air tasted clean and pure, with no taint of gasoline or diesel. Pale wispy clouds scudded quickly across a pale-blue sky as if propelled by a wind I didn’t feel.
We did not move at full demon speed, but we went at quite a clip as we plunged madly down the side of a grassy hill, a dense forest to our left, and on our right the land rose in gentle mounds. Ahead of us sat the biggest building I have ever seen. Think the Whitehouse times three. It looked sort of like the Whitehouse too, except it had three massive columned porches with a rotunda between each. I couldn’t see much of the rest, owing to the trees in front, but the white bits showing between the trees . . . well, it seemed to go on forever, stretching clear across the horizon.
No roads or paths led up to the huge structure, no gardens fronted it.
“Couldn’t we have beamed right in there?” I asked, panting.
“It is the ruling seat of the High Lord. No person can beam directly inside,” Royal replied.
He made to pick me up and I wagged a warning finger at him. “I am going to walk in there, not be carried in like a side of meat.”
He slowed, and I took a moment to bend over, hands braced on knees, and get my breath. We were near enough I could see a path around the circumference of the building, not a road, but a wide dirt path possibly created by moderate foot traffic.
A few minutes later we stopped at the bottom of smooth white steps leading to the porch and wide doors of pale burnished wood. My gaze went up the length of the man who stood there. At a guess almost seven-foot, he was the tallest and oldest demon I had yet seen, with long hair of iron-gray streaked with blue loosely pulled back in a tail. I thought the gray came with age, because his eyes were the same blue shade as the streaks in his hair, and as we got closer I saw lines radiating out from them. Smaller lines arced his mouth and fine lines wrinkled the skin of his cheeks. He was all the more imposing for those indications of age. He awaited us, stiff and upright in his baggy blue pants and multicolored, embroidered jacket, the cuffs and collar of a snowy-white shirt peeking out.
He bowed at the waist as we took the last two shallow steps up to the porch. Gia and Daven eyed him in what I perceived as a superior manner. As if he didn’t notice them, the man stared over their heads.
Royal nodded. “Gareth.”
Gareth smiled and beckoned with one hand. “Come. He’s in the practice yard and I am to take you directly to him.”
He led us inside a huge, gleaming white hall flanked by staircases which curved up to the next floor. There were no banisters and the steps looked like white marble, same as the floor. Demons filled the space, demons with hair and eyes of every imaginable color. They glittered: hair, eyes and jewels. Some men and women wore medieval-style costumes of tight hose and long-sleeved shirts, or tunics over their bare chests. Sight of them brought on another shiver - Royal’s brother and his cadre favored those costumes. Others wore flowing gowns which swept the floor, all in swirling jewel-tone colors, and some heavily embroidered. And, yes, some of the women wore tunics over their bare breasts. But most of the demons had on modern American dress, both casual and formal. A few wore what looked like European and Asian costume. However, they appeared fond of sparkly accessories, because even those wearing formal tux were smothered in jewels.
“Do all of them live here?”
Gareth answered me. “Some are members of the Court and reside here for half the year. Others are come to pay their respects to Lord Lawrence.”
Everyone stared at us. I heard hisses of indrawn breath and muttering. They slowly gathered around us.
“They come at the Lord’s invitation,” Gareth said in a clear, carrying voice.
I realized the demons’ unfriendly looks were for Gia and Daven, not me and Royal. They seemed angry, their faces glowering. Whatever our clients were, they were not popular.
Then Gia and Daven, who until then waited with an air of detachment, looking toward the back of the room as if oblivious of the unhappy demons around us, joined hands and stepped forward so they stood in front of me, Royal and Gareth. Their gazes slowly, very slowly, roamed over the crowd, their expressions cold, like statues carved of pale marble.
Starting near us, the murmuring died away, a tide flowing over the demon horde until an uneasy silence filled the big hall. The demons bowed their heads, one by one lowering their gazes to the floor. They scooted to either side, creating a corridor walled by their bodies which led between the staircases to an arched doorway at the back.
I’d wondered if a few demons could take on Gia and Daven. Guess I had my answer.
We followed Gareth to a wide, windowless passage stuffed with furniture. We threaded through scatterings of deeply upholstered burgundy or cream chairs, delicate little tables on spindly legs, pieces of dark furniture gilded with gold. It looked like something out of a medieval French king’s palace. The thick burgundy carpet cushioned my feet and smothered my footsteps.
To cut a long trek short, after passing through a dozen rooms and as many corridors, we stepped outside again.
Awe made my lower jaw drop. The gargantuan, flat-roofed house formed a circle with a big grass park in the middle. Small copse of weeping willow dotted a sculpted landscape, and all about stood little white buildings with domed roofs something like summerhouses. Reeds fringed several small pools, and a good-sized lake in the middle boasted a wood jetty. Small boats like punts floated over the lake, each carrying two or three demons.
Demon children raced around the perimeter. One group surrounded a boy who held the string of a kite, laughing at the flapping blue and white shape drifting high above the rooftops of the massive house. Five demon girls sat in a summerhouse not fifteen feet from us, their heads close, and I heard giggling like the tinkle of a dozen tiny bells.
Off to one side - I can’t say north, south, east or west because I have no idea where they were - a four-foot white brick wall and wood tiers like bleachers at a baseball diamond surrounded a flat area of packed dirt. Demons occupied most of the tiers and two small figures darted about in the middle. We headed that way.
We reached the arena and stood together just inside a break in the wall. The combatants were boys, one of them Lawrence. The other boy, a young demon with frosted green hair, stood taller than the High Lord as they batted at each other with long, straight swords. Lawrence had his bronze-brown hair bound back in a short braid and a sweatband around his forehead. He held his own, but sweat streaked his face and spattered patterns on the ground as he moved. From the dirt on him, I guessed he’d gone down a number of times. His opponent gave it all he had, bashing away at Lawrence without letup. The swords were wood, but they looked heavy and must pack a wallop. Both were bruised on their bare upper arms, but I couldn’t see any blood.
A tall, stocky demon with hair the color of bleached linen, clad in a brown leather tunic and short brown leather skirt, shouted at the boys from where he stood mere feet away. He darted in now and then, and the boys immediately froze in place. He moved an arm, kicked the back of a leg to make it shift, altered a posture or the grip on a blade, then stepped back and they went at it again.
Now we could finally rest, I took a better look at the house. I had to turn a circle to understand the scope of what I saw. The park must have been a good two miles across, girdled by the High Lord’s House in an unbroken line. A small village could have fit there. It was enormous.
The demons knew we were there, they must have, yet not one approached us or looked our way. They watched their young High Lord battle his opponent.
I leaned against a wood post, my gaze skipping over the Gelpha. I think I will always identify demons by the colors of their hair and eyes, and these ran the gamut. Sunlight sparked fire in their multic
olored hair and to look at them was almost painful. I had to squint. I didn’t look too long at any one of them lest I draw their eyes to me.
A sense of unease seeped under my skin. I couldn’t think of them as anything but prospective enemies, and hundreds surrounded me. I’ll never forget what happened when demons took me from Clarion to Bel-Athaer. I stared at the white building, remembering a gray cavern and a multi-lashed whip tipped with crystal shards on the floor where Royal’s brother dropped it.
I shivered, crossed my arms and wrapped my hands around my biceps.
“Must we waste time while boys play with wooden swords?” Daven muttered from behind me.
With eyes dead ahead, Royal said, “That boy is High Lord of Bel-Athaer. You would be wise to remember.”
Daven snuffed through his nose disparagingly.
The stocky demon looked up, his eyes a peculiar cream which sparkled nonetheless. Lawrence lowered his sword to his side, as did the other boy. Daven had either forgotten the keenness of a demon’s hearing or didn’t care.
Lawrence strolled toward us. Someone tossed him a grubby gray towel and he wiped his face and neck. He stopped, facing us, his gaze slowly sliding over Gia and Daven as if he measured them. “I have heard of the Dark Cousins. I thought them tales to scare small children.”
Cousins? That indicated kinship. Gia said she and Daven were not Gelpha, but were they related? Another type of demon, ones who didn’t glitter?
Lawrence didn’t sound like a little boy. Sure, his voice was young, but deep, and his tone brought a shiver to my spine. It said something like, I expected something fantastic, but you’re really not much, are you. Power rolled off him in a wave. Every nearby demon softly moaned, even Royal. I felt it as a pleasantly warm tickle up my side, but Gia and Daven gasped and the hair lifted off Gia’s shoulder as if by a breeze.
Lawrence’s mother had a little demon blood in her veins from somewhere way back in her ancestry, but not enough so I saw it in her. Apart from his demon looks, Lawrence seemed little different from a six-year-old human child when I met him, until he spoke. I felt his power as he ordered Gorge to accompany him to Bel-Athaer and it was nothing compared to now. Poor Gorge didn’t stand a chance. Feeling that uncanny force roll off Lawrence made me wonder how powerful he’d be when he reached adulthood.
Unlike the demons in the big house, the young lord did not seem at all intimidated by Gia and Daven.
Lawrence suddenly smiled, a bright little-boy smile, all innocence and bonhomie. He deliberately inserted himself between me and Royal, and Gia and Daven, which placed him with his back to them. He smiled at Royal. “I am always happy to see you here, friend Royal.”
Gia’s face looked like a thunderstorm infused her skin, and I couldn’t really blame her. Lawrence had told Royal to bring her and Daven here, and now he acted like they didn’t exist. Did the boy need a lesson in diplomacy, or did he know exactly what he was doing? But nobody came up to him and said, “Er, your Lordliness, this isn’t how you treat powerful visitors.”
He honored me with a slight bow from the waist. “And you, also, Tiff Banks.” He came upright. “I will never forget what you did for me and my mother. You saved my life and helped her find peace.”
I sincerely hoped so, but for all I knew Lindy Marchant still wandered. Perhaps she haunted the apartment in which she and Lawrence lived.
I felt a ridiculous compulsion to curtsy, and stopped myself because I’d make a hash of it. “Just doing my job.”
Damn, but the boy had a presence to him.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” Lawrence continued amid a dead silence. All the surrounding demons were absolutely still. “I know you have urgent matters to attend, so I won’t keep you.” He smiled at me again. “Please come back again. Gorge would be so happy to see you.”
“Sure,” I said. Like hell I will.
***
The walk back through the big House was a long, stiff affair. In any other circumstance, I’d have enjoyed seeing Daven and Gia in a snit. Talk about ruffled feathers. Their high and mightinesses were well and truly rebuffed and insulted by a little boy and could do nothing about it.
Outside again, Royal asked me, “How’s the Dramamine holding up?”
My stomach sank at the thought of the return home, not just the mode of travel; I didn’t want Royal to hold me. I had no choice. He plucked me off the grass and cradled me against his chest, and away we went.
***
We ended up in Royal’s apartment, but I saw nothing but a blur until he put me down on my feet. He didn’t even stop to let us walk through Clarion.
No nausea this time, but I staggered. Royal put a hand out to steady me, but with my gaze on the floor, which didn’t feel level, I fended him off with a wave of my hand. I grasped the window frame, braced myself, and after a couple of deep breaths the room stopped tipping.
I looked out the window while Royal spoke to Daven and Gia. Band music blared, and with traffic barred from using Twenty-Second and side streets, people wandered freely back and forth across the road. Tantalizing aromas seeped inside despite the closed windows.
I barely heard them, but I gathered they wanted to talk and Royal said it would have to wait. He insisted I needed a break and I didn’t butt in to argue. They surprised me by giving in without a struggle. Perhaps they realized further talk would be unproductive with the mood I was in. They said we should meet at Royal’s apartment the next morning.
They left without another word. I looked down at the street, but I didn’t see a thing. Now we were back home, the excitement of Royal’s world over, the manner of Maud’s death hammered at me. I hoped Royal would leave me alone, because I no longer knew what I felt for him.
I turned and headed for the stairs with my face averted. “I’ll be off then.”
“Tiff. . . .”
I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. “No, don’t say anything. I can’t listen to you right now.”
“I don’t want to lose you, Tiff.”
I almost made the stairs, but his tone made me falter. I stopped walking, though I didn’t turn back. “Really? What you did makes me think you don’t place much value on our relationship.”
He came up behind me and stood close. I felt the heat from him down my spine. “You know what I feel for you.”
I opened my mouth to say something scathing, but what I had in mind would only make matters worse. I was through talking. I made it out the door and to the top of the outside stairs, and had to hold the metal banister with one hand. I always considered myself tough, nothing much fazed me - I saw dead people, for crying out loud – but the day’s events had me all shook up. I looked at the cheerful people down below, the strolling couples, the happy little family groups, the gangs of teen boys and girls, yet I’d never felt more alone.
***
I had to take a cab home. As the streets blurred past, I remembered what else Maud said as she faded.
Elizabeth’s journal.
With everything else churning around in my mind, I forgot about that. Did Maud send it, or only know about it? It must be important. A clue of some kind, but to what? The identity of the Charbroiler? If it was, I didn’t see it.
I sighed aloud. Now I had to tell Royal and the Dark Cousins about the journal, and why I kept it to myself.
Chapter Eighteen
Sitting in Royal’s kitchen as we waited for Gia and Daven was a most uncomfortable experience. I should have waited outside the door for them. Royal, and his choice of attire, proved a distraction I didn’t want. He wore a pair of old faded Levis and a white chef’s apron, and nothing else. With his back to me, he padded around his kitchen on bare feet like a huge supple cat.
An overhead lamp hi-lit lightly-bronzed skin, gilding his torso. I closed my eyes on a flood tide of images. His hands, tongue and lips exploring my body in the leisurely way of his love-making. Silken skin, muscles shifting and rolling beneath, hands tightening on my buttocks, my thighs. Sof
t sighs and equally soft moans. The exquisitely, incredibly. . . .
I dug my nails into my palms - I couldn’t think of that now.
I’d had a rotten night. When I got home, I fed Mac and let him out back for five minutes. Jack and Mel were engrossed in some television show. I exchanged a few words with them, said I was tired and went up to bed. A tiny part of me congratulated myself on how normal, even serene, I acted and sounded.
I don’t think I slept more than three hours. I showered and dressed in a kind of mental fugue this morning. Every now and then I snapped out of it, and wondered what I was doing. How I came to be sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee when I didn’t recall making it. Why I stood at the open back door when I didn’t remember opening it. I got in my car and drove to Royal’s place on automatic.
He greeted me with a smile and said something about making breakfast. He wanted to pretend everything was normal between us. Or maybe he thought it was. Maybe he thought I softened toward him during the night.
I sat at the table with my head down. A strained atmosphere settled around us.
I eventually broke the awkward silence. We still had an unsolved case on our hands, and I still wanted answers. “So I was never really part of the equation.”
“They came to me when they realized both their people and Gelpha were being targeted, then Rio went missing. When I said your familiarity with Clarion and the population would be invaluable, they agreed, but put the whammy on me before I could tell them how you operate.”
I hunched one shoulder. “Their loss.”
“I think they realize now, after what you discovered.”
I sighed. “But we still don’t know what happened to Rio.”
“No. But as you say, his disappearance could well be connected to the murders.”
He looked at the eggs and vegetables as if he wondered what to do with them. “I know she can be a bitch, but give Gia some leeway.”
