Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons

A Conspiracy of Demons
A Whisperings Paranormal Mystery

Linda Welch

Books by Linda Welch

Whisperings Paranormal Mysteries
Along Came a Demon
The Demon Hunters
Dead Demon Walking
Demon Demon Burning Bright
Demon on a Distant Shore
A Conspiracy of Demons

Dark Urban Fantasy Short Story Collection
Femme Fatales

Whisperings: A Conspiracy of Demons
Nordic Valley Books

Cover by
Flip City Books

Tiff photo by Jeffrey Banke /
dreamstime.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright 2012 by Linda Welch

All rights reserved.

Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system without prior written permission of the owner of this book.

Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized ed
i
tions.

April, 2013

C
hapter
One

“Cooey!”

I
rolled my eyes. “Come on, Pete. Enough.
”

I didn’t
raise my voice
. Pete hear
d
me from wherever he hid in the old mining town of La Plata.

“Over here now!” Pete whispered
.
When a shade yells, it’s still a whisper to me, albeit a hoarse, forceful whisper.

I’d already spent twenty minutes pretending to play hide and seek. I couldn’t catch him, he zipped away if I came near his hiding place, and Pete knew I couldn’t.

A flash of red
behind
woven pine branches -
I sighed
and slogged up the hill.

High i
n the Bear River Mountains, La
Plata
became
a silver-mining boomtown in the 1890s.
Fifteen hundred
miners occ
upied the small, narrow valley in
1891,
their cabins and stores
on
either side of
the creek. It was all over by 1
8
9
4.
What remains of La Plata
sits in the middle of La Plata Recreation, a
private
camping area on
the 11,000 acre La Plata Ranch
.
But
no one
camps in the old ghost town.

One cabin is still intact,
two are piles of rotting wood.
The other buildings
dissolved
into the
soil
long ago
. Some old
, rusty
mining machinery sits on the hill, and you have to
watch
for collapsing mine shafts
if you hike the area
. Not all of them have been sealed.

Royal’s voice
disturbed
the silence.
“
It’s getting dark.
” He leane
d on the cab of
his new white
Dodge
truck, one leg crossed over the other, arms folded o
n
his chest.
I admired the way his stance
stretched
the
cream
,
long-sleeved shirt tight
over his
arms and
shoulders and
how
his thighs
filled
the blue denim
jeans
.

You’d think Royal spent
hours in the gym working out, but he
never exercises
,
he’
s just naturally built like
one of those Greek gods sculptors are fond of chiseling.

He unfolded his arms and reached up to push long copper and gold hair back over his shoulders, which did more interesting things to his shirt.
“Shall we stay another night?”

I
gave
him a regretful smile
. “I wouldn’t mind, but I told Maryanne we’ll be home today.”

Maryanne i
s the daughter of my favorite kennel owner
, Janie
. A student at River Valley
University, her schedule allows
her to care for my
black-brindle
Scottish terrier MacKlut
zy when I am away. Her mother
offered her services when I needed someone to
care for
Mac while Royal and I were in England, and I’d used her several times since.
A good sitter is a god
send w
hen you are as paranoid as I am about
reliable care for your dog
.

Royal
flash
ed his
white teeth. “I enjoy wat
ching you wake in the morning, e
spe
cially when you wake in my arms.
”

A
w.

I enjoyed c
amping
out last night
. We brought a mattress in
the
truck bed and spent the night under the stars. I
do
not as a rule
camp
in
the mountains
in October
, but a thick duvet and Royal’s hot body kept me toasty.
With no artificial light to
dim
their splendor, sta
rs densely packed the night sky
as if painted on in thick swaths. I could not tear my eyes away, until Royal distracted me.
Need I mention we didn’
t
get
much
sleep?

Fringing the valley, pine and
quaking
aspen stood against a pale-blue sky
.
The
expanse of long,
brown
grass
and dead wildflowers
included
the
brittle
remains of
Mule Ear which could pierce the thickness of my jeans, so I found a flat rock and
sat with arms
wound
around bent knees.
Four Sharp-Shinned hawk
s
circled overhead, low enough
to see
their copper and cream undersides.
Unlike earl
ier in the year when birds cry, insects chatter and tiny creatures rustle
the undergrowth
throug
hout the evening
, only a gentle wind
which sloughed
through pine and shivering aspen leaves broke the silence
.

“Pete,
enough for today. If you don’t come out, we’ll have to leave, and
you won’t hear
the news.”

I didn’t begrudge Pete his fun. Of all the people who visited the old mining town, only I saw and spoke to him
and he ha
d been alone for
so long.
I came here whenever Royal and I camped and a
n hour with
Pete
didn’t
inconvenience
me
, even when he played hide and seek
.
But
we
should get off the mountain
before dusk took over the landscape
.
Moose and deer
descended
from the higher altitudes
and ambled
along the trails
now that winter approached
.
A
moos
e could put a serious dent in Royal’s big truck
, and hurting or killing a moose was not an option.

“Oh, all right,” Pete grumbled from somewhere off to my right.

He came
down the slope, a short, slim young man with waving black hair
which touched
the shoulders of his
torn
red T-shirt. Dirt smeared his khaki shorts and clumped on his brown tennis shoes.
Blood and abrasion
s
showed through
tears
in his clothing and blood matted his disheveled hair.
Pete
and
five buddies got
in
an argument
which escalated and ended in violence
ten years ago
.
As
Pete headed away in a huff,
Boyd Harrop crushed the back of
his
skull with a rock.
Boyd’s temper got out of control, he didn’t mean to kill Pete.
Terrified, the teens dumped Pete’s body down a mine shaft
.

They calmed down after
a while
and realized what a mess they
were in
. Their parents expected them to return home together, so saying they left Pete hale and hearty in La Plata
would not
wash. One of them drove
around
till his
cell-phone
picked up service and called
emergency services
. He said Pete fell down the mine shaft and must be hurt because he didn’t answer them.
Life Flight
arrived and hauled Pete
out, and the coroner
later
ruled
he
fell
down
the shaft and died of multiple wounds from impacting the shaft’s rocky walls. And that was that.

Until Royal
leased a campsite
two
year
s ago
.

After I talked
Captain Mike Warren of Clarion PD Homicide into reopening the case,
his people found
the rock used to smash Pete’s skull at the bottom of the mine shaft.
Ground water
drips in
those old tunnels, but by some miracle
, perhaps due to the way in which the rock wedged in a crevice,
a few s
kin cells which d
id not belong to Pete still adhered
. When this
type of evidence comes up, it is
not uncommon for the police to
request
DNA samples from all parties involved. The skin flakes, of course, came from Boyd’s hand.

Pete sat next to me. “What’s this news?”

“Boyd
got
fifteen
years
.
The prosecutor pushed for the
max
, but the judge
took
his age
at the time and
that it was a crime of passion
into consideration
.
”

“Oh.”
Pete
hung his head,
silent for ten seconds before saying, “I’m sorry
for him
. I was angry
at first, but we were kids
.
He didn’t mean to kill me.
”

“
He’s
not a kid anymore, Pete.
He meant to do you serious damage, he lied and hid the truth for ten years. He could have got
ten
worse.
”

“But he
’
s only twenty-seven
. He never really lived.”

A hawk folded its wings and dropped behind a pine.
The breeze became a wind which dipped into the valley and ran over the long grass; it bowed as if stroked by a giant hand.
I
gave myself a mental shake. “Neither did you.
I’m sorry
, Pete, it’ll be
long
years
before you go on
down the road
.”

He lifted his head and eyed me. “What will happen when . . .
I leave
?”

“
No idea
, but those I saw pass over
seemed happy
to be going
.”

I stood and swatted dead grass from my
Levis
. “I’ll see you next time.”

He
stood beside me, face
lifted
to the sky. “W
inter’s coming. You won’t be ba
ck till spring. You will come back?”

“
You bet
.” I grinned at him. “And next time, I’m gonna
catch
you.”

He laughed in my face. You can’t physically
catch
a shade.

Royal had the truck running when I joined him. He slowly eased the big beast along the narrow trail which took us to a more populated part o
f the recreation
area
. C
ampers, trailers and motor homes
half hidden by quaking aspen
st
ill sat in their camping spots,
but m
any
people had already taken
their rigs out
in case snow fell early.
We drove past the
spring where we filled our five—
gallon containers on the way in, then
the
manager’s trailer,
over the cattle grid
and out of the campground.

Driving the ranch trails is teeth-rattling and bone-shaking,
until
the trail becomes a gravel road on the far side of the property’s gate. I relaxed back
in
the smooth leather seat and took my soda from the cup hold
er, happy
I could drink without it splashing all over me.

Royal’s amber and sandalwood scent filled the cab. I
drank in
his
perfect
profile before
returning my gaze
to the road.