Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven (5 page)

And
we could move in the Squad Room. Mel had snuck out of Mike’s office and now sat
in a chair facing Officer Arcangelo Armellino. Tall, raven-haired, a sun-kissed
complexion, swooping black brows and warm brown eyes which make a woman melt like
a popsicle on a one-hundred-degree day, Archie Armellino drew Mel like a
magnet.

I
went behind Mike’s desk to see if a file for me sat there but didn’t spot it.

“What
are they doing?” Jack asked.

“I
don’t know.” Then I did. “See how ill at ease Mike is? He has something and
Royal knows it.”

“So
it’s a kind of macho waiting game?”

Neither
Royal nor Mike said a word, but Mike’s face reddened. When I thought their war
of silence would last forever, Mike said, “Roy, this is a police matter and
you’re a civilian. I’ll try to keep you informed, but really I can tell you very
little. I couldn’t even if you were still under my command. You’re too close.
It’s personal.”

“Damn
right it is personal.”

“I’m
sorry, Roy.”

Royal
shoved up from the chair and glared. Mike opened his mouth, closed it. Both
volatile men in certain circumstances, they knew they’d lose their tempers if
the conversation continued.

I
watched Royal leave Mike’s office.

“Come
on!” Jack hissed. “He’s getting away.”

I
rushed after Royal and clutched his aura. Mel joined us after a final, reluctant
look at Archie.

In
his truck, Royal’s face turned ruddy as anger flushed his copper complexion. “He’s
on to something, Tiff.”

“I’m
wondering—” I began, and swallowed the rest. He wasn’t really talking to me.

“I
swear I will find who did this to you.” His hands clenched on the steering
wheel until the leather creaked. “And when I do. . . .”

“Oh,
shit.” My shiver came not from chilly temperatures I did not feel. I recalled a
night when I lay in his arms and told him my deepest fear, of dying violently
and remaining as a shade. He promised to find my murderer and kill him, and
release me to pass onward.

“But
I’m not dead.” My gaze darted from Jack to Mel. “If he kills anyone, it’ll be
murder, and when I get back in my stupid body and wake up, and Royal understands
what he’s done. . . .”

Then
I saw a deeper meaning in his words. “Oh, Royal,” I whispered. He believed I
was beyond saving. He meant to find the shooter and kill him so I need not
linger when I died.

Royal
pulled into the parking lot opposite his apartment, climbed from the truck and
slammed the door. We floated with him to the sidewalk and across Twenty-Second.

“Let
go before he gets to the steps,” Mel said.

I
looked at the nameplate by the staircase.
Banks and Mortensen.
“I don’t
want to,” I moaned. What if I never saw Royal again?

“He
is not going to conveniently take us to the clairvoyant. If you want to see
her,
let go now,
” Jack snapped.

I
clenched my jaw. I refused to think I existed on borrowed time. I
would
get my body back. To do it, I needed every scrap of information I could gather
and I couldn’t do it alone. I needed someone who operated in the physical
world.

I
released my grasp on Royal’s aura and stopped moving. A giant hand folded on my
heart and squeezed as I watched him climb the steps without me.

“Now
we can go on.” Mel pointed at a middle-aged blonde who carried two shopping
bags. “She’s heading in the right direction.”

“But
I don’t know her.”

“You
want to wait until you see a friend?” Jack rolled his eyes. “We might be here
till Christmas. You don’t understand the mechanics of traveling yet. Getting
here with Royal was easy, but hopping transportation when you want a particular
destination is hit or miss.”

“Yeah.
We move in increments and it can take an entire day, and that’s to get someplace
in Clarion,” from Mel. “So we take what we can.”

“Oh,
okay,” I grumped. I grabbed at the women as she passed us. Her aura slipped
clean through my hand.

Luckily
Mel and Jack came a heartbeat behind me. They held the woman but let go when they
saw my failure. But now they stood several feet from me.

“We
have to coordinate. We can’t keep stopping for you to catch up,” Jack declared
petulantly.

It
occurred to me I didn’t know where the clairvoyant lived, or operated out of. “In
case we do lose one another, what’s the address?”

Jack
squinted and fingered his lower lip. “Somewhere on Pennsylvania.”

“Somewhere?”

“We
saw her ad in the newspaper an
age
ago.” Mel pointed at another woman. “Her.”

I
let the woman pass me. “Do you know how long Pennsylvania is?”

“No.
Do you?”

I
didn’t exactly. “It connects east and west Clarion. It’s
long
,” I
emphasized. I sighed as our next target passed and moved beyond reach, knowing
I grasped at straws. We didn’t know Madam Magenta’s location and unless her business
bore a sign, how in the world might we find her?

Miserably,
I gazed across the street at the Mad Moose and a window full of sweet and
savory confections. I often paused here at the bottom of the steps to savor the
aroma of pastries and coffee which seeped from the café. Now I got nothing but
dead, lifeless air.

We
managed to snag a young man and he continued for half a block until he reached
his car. As we had no idea where he headed, we released him.

I
groaned. This would take
forever.

And
it didn’t help when Mel suddenly let go as we turned along Deacon Street
piggybacked to a couple of teens who twined each other like mating octopi. Jack
and I were ten feet away when we released our grips and settled to the sidewalk.
“Mel!”

“Look
at these shoes,” she crooned as she stood at a store window with hands clasped at
her bosom. “You’d think after all this time I’d be used to wearing the same
clothes, but I’d
kill
to get into a new outfit.”

“Come
on, Mel,” I exhorted. “People are swarming. Catch one.”

“In
a sec.” She put her head on one side and looked at the shop window. “I adore
the fashions of today.”

“Am
I gonna have to come get you?” I threatened.

“Not
your
fashions, let’s face it, you don’t have any,” she continued
obliviously. “Styles for the younger, slimmer, chicer woman.”

“See
what I’ve endured all these years?” from Jack.

I
dug my fingers in my hair. “Mel!”

Scowling,
she turned from the window. “You don’t have to yell. Believe me, in a few years
you’ll
wish for something else.
You’ll
be glued to store windows,
imagining how fashionable clothes will look on you.”

I
wore the clothes I threw on the morning I was shot and didn’t notice what I put
on at the time. A plain white T-shirt, blue fleece vest, worn blue jeans, black
leather jacket and brown leather ankle boots. My usual stylish ensemble.

Hm.
Why the clothes I wore when shot, not a hospital gown? I supposed I should
think myself fortunate. I shuddered to imagine the remarks Jack might invent had
I worn a short, gaping gown.

Oh,
my.
I reached inside my jacket, found my angle draw holster and drew my Ruger.

“What
are you
doing?”
Jack shrilled.

“Just
thought of the stuff in my pockets and wondered if I had this.” I turned the
gun in my hand, studying it.

“Put
it away!” Mel piped. “It might go off!”

I
met her agitated gaze. “Why? Nobody but us can see it. If it does fire, it
can’t hurt anyone. Can it?” I pointed the barrel skyward.

Jack
lifted his hands, palm down, and flapped them. “Don’t try it, Tiff. Better safe
than sorry.”

“If
it doesn’t hurt the living, what if you shoot a ghost bird, or a ghost plane,
or an angel?” from Mel.

“Mel,”
I snorted, and put a little pressure the trigger.

It
didn’t move, not a fraction. I pulled harder. For a second I marveled that however
much pressure I put on the trigger, my finger didn’t feel near to breaking.

“What
do I need the damn thing for anyway?” I rammed the Ruger in the holster.

“We
aren’t left with what we need, we get what we carried with us at the time,”
said Jack. He pushed one hand in his pants pocket. “Look.”

A
dime balanced on his palm. Jack peered at it sadly. “It’s all I have, they took
everything else.”

“Me,
too,” said Mel. “Even my earrings.”

“They
must have missed it.” Jack sighed and slipped the coin in his hip pocket. “And
I can’t get rid of it. Not that I want to. I accidentally dropped it down the
heat register in the kitchen. Days later when I put my hands in my pockets,
there it was. So I experimented, tossing it away, finding it back in my
pocket.”

When
you are used to a certain weight in your pockets, you don’t notice it, which is
why I didn’t immediately marvel I had my Ruger. Now I groped in my jacket and
jeans pockets and fished out the contents. My house and car keys, my wallet which
would not open, a stick of gum I couldn’t get out of the wrapper, and half a
dog biscuit.

My
hand went to my neck.
And this.
My engagement ring and a tiny crucifix
on a silver chain.

“Guys,
time’s a ticking,” Jack said. “We want to find Madam today, not tomorrow.”

We
snagged another
ride
who headed north. I looked at the space Irving
Prentice occupied for ten years as we moved along Temple. Irving was the third
person Mel, Jack and I taught how to travel and one of the most difficult, for
Irving stood in a prominent part of downtown. We went to him early in the
morning when not many autos and only the occasional wino or homeless person was
abroad. There
was
traffic, and each time a car approached I hurried
along the sidewalk as if to a destination, then streaked back to Irving when
the coast was clear. Took us two nights to teach him.

I
see Irving traveling in Clarion. He loves his new ability to move, watch people
in other parts of town, listen to their conversations. He has been to the
opera, seen plays and movies, hobbled through the art gallery. He’s having the
time of his life. Um . . . I mean death.

Two
hours later we moved along Pennsylvania attached to a mailman. Not the swiftest
transportation as he parked, trudged through the slush for a block delivering
mail, returned to his van and drove to the next block. But grabbing him was fortunate,
the best prospect of locating Madam Magenta. We read the name on each batch of
mail over his shoulder before he slid it in the box, hoping to see Magenta on
the envelopes.

Pennsylvania
became a residential area as we went west. Perhaps the clairvoyant lived and conducted
business in her home, but did she use her real name? If she received mail
addressed to Madam Magenta, with my luck none came today. Personal mail bearing
her real name and an envelope might read M. Smith or some such.

Approaching
West Pennsylvania, the small houses and yards on this end of the street were on
the whole well kept, but they became dilapidated in the next block. Another
four blocks would take us across the railroad tracks and into gang territory.

Then,
plain as day, an envelope read: Ms. Magenta Benson.

I
let go, and we found ourselves on a concrete step while the mailman walked away.

“Has
to be her,” said Mel.

“Can’t
be many Magentas,” I agreed. “Now, how do we get inside?”

Mel
heaved a sigh. “We wait.”

As
luck had it, twenty minutes or so later a silver sedan pulled to the curb and a
short, plump woman who looked to be in her sixties climbed out and headed along
the path. She wore black from head to toe: shoes, hose, skirt and mid-length
coat, and a black beret perched atop her shoulder-length gray hair. Feet skidding
in the slush, she hustled along the path and up the step through the now
ferocious sleet. But she made it and stood beneath the small porch, brushing at
her damp shoulders.

“This
is it,” Jack said, and latched on her.

She
knocked on the door as I made my move, and I missed. Cursing, I grabbed again
and felt the silky-soft aura in my hand. I got it the same time as Mel attached
herself.

After
a moment, the door opened to reveal a startling figure, a tall woman clad in a
long-sleeved, high-necked turquoise blouse tucked in a floor-length black
skirt. A fringed silk shawl of dazzling metallic colors in a Slavic pattern
draped her shoulders. With a ring on every finger, her hand rested on a walking
stick ending in a snake’s head instead of a knob. A mass of tousled black hair,
from which big gold hoop earrings poked, fell on the shawl and tangled over her
back. Dark eyes, thickly lashed and shadowed with purple, stared haughtily from
beneath slashing black eyebrows in an oval face. Her complexion could be olive
or darkly tanned. Mauve blush highlighted her cheeks too well and dark-purple
lipstick plastered her mouth.

“Good
god,” Jack exclaimed.

Mel
said, “She could be a gypsy from a Fifties movie.”

“I
bet she has a crystal ball on a fringed velvet tablecloth.”

“And
tarot cards.”

“Sorry
I’m early, Madam Magenta,” the visitor said. “I allowed extra time for the
drive in this awful weather and didn’t need it.”

“No
matter, my dear Mrs. Villiams.” Madam’s low, throaty, accented voice was as
exotic as her appearance. “Come in.”

Magenta
turned and led Mrs. Villiams inside. She shut the door and continued along a
narrow corridor where a small table lamp provided minimal illumination. The first
door on the right took us into a parlor.

“Please,
take a seat,” Magenta said, wafting one hand at a wood chair with a seat padded
in dark plum velvet. “Vould you like tea?”

“I’d
love some.” Mrs. Villiams settled in the chair.

“I
think her name’s Williams,” Mel suggested. “Madam is one of those foreigners
who can’t pronounce W.”

Madam
leaned heavily on her cane as she left the room.

I
agreed with Mel, Magenta resembled a Roma in an old 1950s movie and her chosen
décor might have been pulled out of one which included séances. Heavy
plum-colored velvet curtains on the windows made the room dim; a ceiling lamp
with a tasseled shade sent a muted glow over a round table covered with a cloth
which matched the curtains. In three corners, dusty artificial plants sat on
tables with small tops and long curved legs. Equally dusty knickknacks dotted a
set of glass shelves with a tasseled shawl draped on one edge. But no crystal
ball and no tarot cards.

Magenta
returned with a tray balanced on one hand. Mrs. Williams quickly stood to take
it and set it near the table’s edge. “Shall I pour?”

“If
you vould be so kind.”

Mrs.
Williams poured tea from a china pot into two china cups and handed one to
Magenta, who propped her cane on the table’s rim so she could take it in both hands.

Jack
stepped away from Mrs. Williams and circled the room. Mel moved nearer the tray
and eyed a small plate of plain cookies.

“You
can let go, Tiff,” Jack said.