The Demon Hunters (23 page)

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.”

I must have made a noise. He looked at
me over his shoulder. “I just ruined the moment, didn’t
I.”

“
We weren’t having a
moment
.”

“
We were talking. I
wondered if we would do so again, or communicate with sign
language.”

I didn’t respond to his feeble attempt
at mirth. He got on with the business of breakfast.

“
Why should I give Gia
Sabato a break?”

He scooped up chopped green onions and
sprinkled them on the omelet already firming up in the skillet.
“Rio’s probably dead, and she knows it.”

How would I feel if someone I cared
for disappeared and I had to conclude they were dead? Okay, I’d cut
Gia some slack. Maybe.

“
Tell me about the
homicides.”

He swung around and put his
hip to the counter. He made little circles in the air with his
spoon as he spoke, an inward look in his eyes. “At first the
victims were Gelpha. Two years ago, we thought it was over and
breathed a cautious sigh of relief. Until we heard from Gia and
Daven. T
heir
killings started about the time ours stopped.”

“
Hm. Odd. As if the killer
switched from one breed to another.” Oops. Open mouth, insert
foot.

Royal frowned at me.
“Breed? We’re a
breed
?” He pushed his hair off his forehead with the back of one
hand. “I suppose it is an improvement on demon.”

“
Well it’s awkward
saying
Daven’s people
or
Gia’s people
all the time. If you won’t tell me what they are. . .
.”

He rubbed at his eyes. “Please
understand, between your world and mine, some subjects are
taboo.”

I twiddled my fingers on the table
top. The statement emphasized our differences and reminded me, yet
again, he wasn’t human.

When I first met Royal, he told me I
had to trust him, and I’d worked hard on trust ever since, even
when he excluded me from some parts of his life. Trust doesn’t come
easy to me. I’ve had issues with trust since I was a kid. In my
experience, when you trusted someone, they stabbed you in the back.
But one day in Gorge’s shop, when I led Royal to Lawrence, I
decided I’d trust him and no going back. It was a big step forward
for me, and I’m sure my therapist would be proud of me, if I had
one.

I couldn’t blame anyone but myself. I
let my guard down. I put too much faith in someone, and see what
happened?

“
Tiff,” he said in a gentle
tone, “I’m not unaware that when our conversation unintentionally
drifts to your life before we met, you steer it in another
direction. I hope, one of these days, you will feel you can share
more with me, but until then I will respect your
reluctance.”

I wanted to look away from his eyes,
from his sincerity. I held his gaze with effort.

“
If I can do so, can you
not do likewise? You do not want to talk about some aspects of your
life, and I am forbidden to share some of mine.”

It sounded so darned reasonable,
except I am not a reasonable person. I don’t talk about my
childhood and teen years because it’s nobody’s damned business and
. . . okay, so something unpleasant happened but it’s not big news,
I bet the same still goes on in foster homes throughout the nation.
It’s just that when I think of it, a massive obstruction fills my
throat.

But Royal’s reality and its secrets
could impact my world.

However, I could bite my
tongue, for a time. I would make it my business to learn everything
there was to know about Bel-Athaer and one of these days, I
would
know.

“
Okay,” I conceded. “Gelpha
and Dark Cousins. That sounds stupid too, like something Lawrence
made up.”

“
We do call them Dark
Cousins, because we would rather not speak their real name
aloud.”

Oookay.
Scary stuff.

“
I can tell you this much:
the title is a courtesy, they are not related to Gelpha, they are
not
demons
.”

Darn. And I thought I had them pegged.
“But if - ”

“
Tiff,” he warned, his
brows almost meeting between his nose.

“
Okay!” I rolled my eyes
up. “The murderer went from killing Gelpha to killing Dark Cousins.
Why?”

Royal turned back to the skillet and
went about the delicate process of omelet-folding. “Perhaps he
didn’t know he switched. As Daven said, we are very
alike.”

“
That presumes the killer
is someone who can recognize you guys. So, yeah, the Charbroiler
could be Gelpha or Dark Cousin.”

“
Or he is human, and Maud
worked for him.”

“
The killer turned his
sights on Dark Cousins, but then he went after Maud, a Gelpha. Maud
said, ‘forgive me, I betrayed them.’ Maybe she had an attack of
conscience and decided to betray h
im
, and he found out.”

“
What happened to Maud. . .
.”

I growled something he wasn’t supposed
to hear, but being a demon, he heard anyway. “I know it was cruel,
but if she had been in a human hospital they would have helped her
on her way. She was too far gone for anything else.”

“
They wouldn’t have
helped her on her way
unless there was absolutely no alternative, and if they did,
they’d use morphine, not a fucking great sword. You kept that woman
there, in agony until I arrived and then you - ”

“
Tiff - ”

My entire body felt tense, so much it
ached. I drew in a long, deep breath. “We will not discuss it
further, not now, maybe not ever,” I said fiercely.

“
Dammit, Tiff!” Royal threw
the wooden spoon across the room. It hit the wall and broke in two
pieces which shot in opposite directions, along with little chips
of brick. He spun to face me. “What was I supposed to do? Fight
every Gelpha in the room? Drag Maud’s abused body out of
there?”

I surged upright. “You knew what would
happen and you still took me there. Worse, Royal, you kept quiet
while you did it. You gave me no information and no
choice.”

He had his arms in the air
but let them drop, looking beaten. “
I
had no choice. I told them we’d
find another way. I was overruled.”

“
If you’d just told me. . .
.”

“
I thought we’d established
the fact I couldn’t tell you!”

“
Yeah! Because I wouldn’t
have gone!” I slapped my palms on the table top. “You were an
officer of the law, Royal! What happened to you? When did you
decide to ignore your oath?”

His hand clenched on air. “I’m a
Gelpha enforcer. I - ”

I didn’t let him finish.
“And when did you start thinking it’s okay to
use
me.”

He stared at me and I couldn’t read
his eyes. “Do I spend the rest of my life apologizing to
you?”

As if it would help. I couldn’t find
the words. I closed my eyes, shook my head. I opened them to see
him turning back to the skillet, shoulders set like
concrete.

I dropped back in the chair. We
settled into an uneasy silence. Royal grabbed a spatula, slid the
omelet on a plate, cut it in half and transfer that half to another
plate.

The case, concentrate on
the case. What was I missing here?
Think,
Tiff, think. Why did the Dark Cousin murders start when the Gelpha
finished?
There had to be a
reason
.

“
These murders - how long has it been going on?”

“
Ten years, we think.
Germany, Poland, Austria, Hungary and the Czech
Republic.”

Jesus!
“Why haven’t I heard of it before now?”

“
Because we managed to get
to the bodies and dispose of them before they were found. They are
listed as missing persons.”

I watched him sprinkle
diced tomatoes and chopped cilantro atop the omelets and garnish
each with a big dollop of sour cream. “The Dark Cousin murders
started two years ago -
where,
here in the States?”

“
Not at first. The killer
seems to have moved his operation here a year ago.”

I chewed that over for a
moment.

“
And this switch from
Gelpha to Dark Cousins . . . it was abrupt, one moment the Gelpha,
next the Dark Cousins?”

Royal walked over with the
two plates, paused, thinking. He nodded. “It
was
abrupt. As you say, one moment
the Gelpha, the next, Dark Cousins.”

“
And no Gelpha murders
since then.”

“
Apart from Maud. . . .” He
joined me at the table with plates in hand, pushed one of the
plates to me. I gazed at his sleek, bowed head as he cut his omelet
into neat little pieces.

What was I missing? Pieces of the
puzzle. Gelpha, then Dark Cousins.

I sat up straighter.
Hell’s Bells
. Another
Dark Cousin had died and I’d presumed Maud fingered the victim
before her conscience got the better of her, before the killer
tried to get rid of her. But a horrible notion battered my brain.
No, not a notion, a certainty.

It wasn’t over.

“
Two of them,” I blurted
out.

He looked up, eyes narrowed. “Go
on.”

“
Maud identified Gelpha,
until the killer found someone who can identify Dark Cousins. Maybe
they were his target all along. Maybe Maud knew, but for some
reason set him on her people, because he couldn’t tell the
difference. He had only her word to go by. She identified Gelpha
and someone else is identifying Dark Cousins. Two of
them.”

Royal speared a wad of omelet and
chewed thoughtfully for a few seconds. “It does make a macabre kind
of sense. Maud’s father and his cabal planned and attempted the
assassination of the High Lady. He was banished and took Maud with
him. She was a child at the time, but she could have returned to
Bel-Athaer when she reached her majority. She refused.”

“
All those years, her daddy
poisoning her mind - I bet she hated your people.”

“
So she betrayed them to
the Charbroiler.”

“
Until he found someone
else. Maybe he realized Maud fingered the wrong people. Maybe he
didn’t trust her to keep her mouth shut. Either way, she was a
liability, so he tried to kill her.”

Royal lifted another morsel to his
mouth, but paused, then dropped the fork on his plate. He bowed his
head, closed his eyes, joined his hands behind his neck beneath his
long hair. “If you are right, there will be more Dark Cousin
deaths.” He rolled his eyes to look up at me. “I thought it was
over and now we have to start again.”

“
Not true. We have the guy
with the Mercedes, the hit on Daven. We took a step back, nothing
more.” I moved the omelet about on my plate. “And we have
Elizabeth’s journal. I don’t see how it can be a clue, but it has
to be. Why else would Maud speak of it with her last
breath?”

There, I said it. I’d been waiting for
the right time to ease the journal into our discussion.

“
Elizabeth’s
journal?”

I met his eyes across the table. “Oh,
didn’t mention that, did I.”

Royal’s cell phone chose that moment
to ring and he answered it with his eyes glued to mine. He listened
for a minute.

“
We’ll be here.”

He closed the phone and put it on the
table. “Daven. Something came up. They want to meet tomorrow
morning.”

Oh dear, what a
shame.
“Oh darn,” I said, my voice
monotone.

“
What’s this about a
journal?”