The Demon Hunters (24 page)

I became interested in my omelet. “It
came in the mail for Banks and Mortensen, to my address. It’s real
old, written in 1887 by Elizabeth Hulme, a fifteen-year-old British
girl. Her father was an archeologist and she went with him to some
old city or something in Burma.”

Silence. I cut off a morsel of omelet
with my fork and got it in my mouth.

“
If it came to Banks and
Mortensen, why didn’t you tell me?”

I made a face, and not only because
the omelet had gone cold. “With all the excitement, I didn’t get
around to it.”

More silence.

“
Could this have anything
to do with your trip to Las Vegas?”

“
I wanted to talk to
Elizabeth’s last surviving relative. Paid her a visit.”

“
I see. With all the
excitement, you still found time to track down the last surviving
relative of a girl who’s been dead for over a hundred
years?”

I was
not
going to apologize. I dropped my
fork on the plate and shoved the plate away. “Don’t come over all
sarcastic with me, Royal. And don’t talk to me like I owe you an
apology. I didn’t see a connection to the Borrego case, I still
don’t. In fact, I don’t see it has anything to do with the
Charbroiler murders, now I know about them.”

I pushed up from my chair.
“I’ll bring the damned journal over tomorrow morning. You can have
it. See what
you
make of it.”

If I’d had the journal in my hand, I’d
have thrown it at him.

Chapter
Nineteen

I stomped down Royal’s stairs and
started for home.

The drive didn’t seem to take any time
at all. Have you ever brought your car to a stop and wondered how
you got there? You know you took your usual route, followed the
rules and drove responsibly, didn’t run a red light, or hit another
car. But you can’t picture the drive in your mind’s eye. I couldn’t
recall the streets going by.

I parked in the street, walked to my
front door and stared at it awhile before going inside, then headed
right upstairs with MacKlutzy following me. I tried to make my
voice bright and cheerful as I called out, “Hi, guys! I’ll be down
in a minute!” because I didn’t want Mel and Jack following me up
there.

I picked up Mac and collapsed on the
bed. He struggled free soon as we hit the mattress, and maybe I
imagined the question in his bright brown eyes. He wasn’t usually
allowed on the bed.

When Mac was a puppy he became a
menace in the car. He was all over the place: on my knees, across
my shoulders, up above the dashboard pressed to the windscreen,
down at my feet as I worked the brake and accelerator. Then one
day, I didn’t have the passenger window rolled up far enough and
out he went, and there was a ditch at the side of the road. He fell
a long way for a tiny puppy. He broke his wishbone, and since then
not only does he stay put on the seat of the car, he knows what he
can safely negotiate. He knows if something’s too high to jump up
on, he’d best not jump off it. He settled down near my feet with a
doggy sigh.

Colin’s smiling face
appeared inside my head. So, someone at Clarion PD talked to Col
about my so-called psychic ability
.
I bet the entire division had a fine old time
dissing Tiff Banks.

Clarion PD threw me out the
first time I went to them. I kind of expected their reaction, but I
didn’t like telling the victim I couldn’t help him. I went back six
months later with information on another case. They didn’t want to
listen to me then either, but the murderer was already a suspect
and I told them things about the case not made available to the
press or public. I told them where to find evidence. I saw the
conflict rage across Mike Warren’s face. He
almost
believed me, he
wanted
to believe me, but
arresting an innocent man on the word of a crazy woman could cost
him his job. Mike brought the guy in for questioning and he cracked
under pressure. And I had me a career as Clarion Police
Department’s resident psychic.

I’ve worked for other PDs too. I’ve
been all over the nation, kind of on loan from Clarion. Then I quit
my part-time consulting job and opened the agency with Royal. I
should have kept my job with the police. Working for the cops, I
felt useful.

And look at me now, witness to a
murder staged for my benefit. Who was I helping now? Not Rio
Borrego. God only knew what happened to him.

I had to go downstairs eventually. To
keep my roommates out my hair, I got busy sorting through the
pantry. It’s surprising what you find shoved in the back when you
haven’t had a thorough look in years. What I tossed filled four
paper sacks. Mac “dogged my footsteps” the entire time, hoping I’d
drop something tasty.

“
Think again, MacKlutzy.
Nothing tasty in
this
pantry,” I told him.

“
And what’s this in aid
of?” Jack asked.

He should have left me alone. “Why
does it have to be in aid of anything?” I snapped.

“
It’s been in there for
years, so why disturb it now?” Mel said.

“
That’s the point, it’s way
past edible.”

Jack decided to be snide.
“Oh, so your sudden, completely atypical behavior is not in
aid
of anything, but it
does have a
point
.”

“
That can of beans looks
fine to me,” from Mel.

They were so close behind me, if I
stepped back I’d go through them. Tempting. Instead, I picked up
the can of beans and showed them the expiry date. “See . . .
2001.”

I weighed the can in my hand. Oh, but
it did feel fine there, and heavy, and most certainly would make a
dent in the wall if I hurled it.

The can went back in a
sack.

“
You could tell us what’s
wrong,” Mel said in a gentler tone.

“
Nothing wrong with me,
sister.”

“
You know about
tells
?” Jack said,
emphasizing the word.

I stuck my hand back in the pantry.
“You mean those little giveaways, from people playing poker? Yeah,
so what?”

“
Well no, not just card
games. We do it all the time in everyday life.”

“
I repeat, so what?” I
needed the step stool to reach the top shelf. I pulled it out from
between the fridge and the kitchen drawers.

Mel moved to stand by the
fridge. “You have enormous
tells
. Like baking
cookies
,
or
cleaning out the kitchen. Those are not things you do as a habit,
now are they. And although I’m sure a collector of antiquities
would be interested in what you have in the pantry, I don’t think
that’s why you’re clearing it out.”

I turned and gave them the stern eye.
Seemed to me a good time to straighten them out on a few things.
“One, I don’t have to explain myself to you. Two, this is my house
and what I do in it is my business. Three, I don’t need
psychoanalysis from a couple of spooks.”

Jack came in, nose to spectral nose
with me. “One, I’m tired of you talking to me like I’m your kid
brother. Two - you think because we’re dead, you can treat us like
children? Why should we put up with your tantrums anytime you feel
like it? We live here too, you know.”

I bit my tongue. I seethed with the
impulse to say they didn’t have to live in my house. But this was
my bad mood trying to control me. I was out of line and knew
it.

I dropped my head, rubbed my fingers
over my brow. “I’m sorry, guys. That was uncalled for. I
apologize.”

“
Damn right too,” Jack
muttered in a low voice.

“
We’ll forgive you, if you
tell us what’s bothering you,” from Mel.

I took the two steps to the kitchen
table, sat, and told them.

***

“
You’re going to forgive
him,” Mel said.

“
Why? How can I? He doesn’t
deserve it.”

“
As he said, he didn’t have
a choice.”

“
There’s always a
choice.”

“
What was he supposed to
do?” Jack put in. “If he fought the other demons for Maud’s body,
what then? Did you think that far?”

Were they out of their
freaking minds? I couldn’t believe Mel and Jack were defending
Royal, their arch-rival, the guy who took my attention away
from
them.
“No,” I
admitted. “But he took me there. Knowing what they were going to
do, he still took me.”

“
Because something valuable
could come of it. Her death would have purpose.”

“
He didn’t know so, and she
didn’t tell us anything useful, anyway.”

“
He took the chance, to
discover who the murderer is, to prevent more deaths. He did it for
the good of us all, Tiff.”

“
For the good of Gelpha and
Dark Cousins,” I amended.

“
And they don’t deserve to
live?” from Mel. “Because they’re not humans? And what if the
killer starts in on human beings?”

I looked at Jack. “What would you have
done, Jack?”

He pulled on his lower lip. “Gee,
that’s a tough one, seeing as I’m not Gelpha and I’m
dead.”

I finished sorting through the pantry
and began on the cabinets, but so much of what I had might come in
handy one day, I left everything there. As I worked, I thought over
what Jack and Mel said. My roommates are much more than resident
ghosts. They are the only shades with whom I’ve had a prolonged
relationship, and they taught me a lot about the lingering dead.
Jack was right, the dead are still people. They don’t have
corporeal bodies, they cannot exist as we do, but they retain their
emotions and their powers of reasoning. That can deteriorate over
time, and Jack and Mel can be childlike, but very often they speak
common sense, and not a few times have steered me in the right
direction.

I gave up on the cabinets and sat at
the kitchen table, not knowing what to do next. On impulse I picked
up the kitchen phone and punched in a number.

A feminine voice answered.
“Hello?”

Colin had a visitor? “Is Colin
there?”

“
Not right now.”

“
And you are. . .
?”

I would not give out that information
over the phone, but this woman told me without hesitation. “I’m
Colin’s girlfriend.”

Oh.

“
Can I take a
message?”

I didn’t want to be the mysterious
female who asked for her boyfriend then hung up, and I did not want
to leave my name. I said the first thing to come into my mind.
“This is Caroline with Bermans. I’m calling to tell you about -
”

“
Thank you,” she cut in,
her voice degrees cooler. “We’re not interested.”

“
I’m sure if you -
”

She cut me off again. “Thank you for
calling. Good-bye.”

At least she was polite. Having worked
for Bermans and been on the other end of such a call, I knew many
people were far from polite to a telemarketer.

I listened to the dial tone for a
second, then turned off the phone. Why did I call Colin? I had
nothing particular in mind to say to him. I had no romantic
feelings for him. I was relieved to know he had a girlfriend which,
hopefully, meant he no longer had feelings for me. Maybe on an
instinctual level I needed some basic contact with someone I could
talk to freely, with whom I didn’t need to be secretive, and Colin
knew the truth. Maybe I needed a friend.

I hate self-analysis, all it does is
twist your brain in knots.

I was a mess.

The afternoon smoldered. I changed
into cutoffs and a halter top, and went out back to the orchard
with the journal and a soda. I hoped to find something I’d missed
in the little book. Did Maud send it or have it sent? Was it a clue
to the Gelpha and Dark Cousins murders? But I couldn’t concentrate
and got tired of beating off the bugs.

And, of course, I couldn’t get what
Jack said out my head. It wasn’t anything other than Royal said,
but hearing it from another person made a difference. Jack didn’t
say it to defend his actions, as I thought Royal did.

Sometimes my roommates can be logical
- I hate when they go all commonsense on me. Since Royal saved my
life, I’d seen him as a supernatural knight in shining armor, but
that was my problem, not his. Sometimes, like all men, and women,
he followed a path he would rather not.

Sitting in my orchard, I asked myself
what life without Royal would be like, and realized I couldn’t
imagine not seeing him again. But if we stayed together, could I
learn to live with what he was, instead of what I wanted him to be?
I felt like he betrayed me. Could I get past that? Did I want him
enough to try?

Was I the worse kind of hypocrite, to
condemn Royal when I’m not exactly lily-white? Technically, I am an
accessory to the murder of Gilberto Fuentes.