Dead Demon Walking (24 page)

At long last Gareth walked from out
the crowd, stopped in front of us and bowed his head. “Very
well.”

Yes!
I wanted to punch air. “Great! Let’s go get this
motherfucker!”

Royal’s brow creased. “The only place
you are going is home. You have no natural defenses. He could kill
you in the blink of an eye.”

I patted my Ruger where it nested in
the harness below my left armpit. “I have this. If you leave me
behind, I’ll find you, and him.”

“
I don’t think so. You are
going home, over my shoulder if necessary.”

He wouldn’t! “If you do that, I will
never speak to you again.”

“
That would pain me, but I
can live with it rather than see you hurt, or dead.”

And it would pain me to let him face
the Dark Cousin without me at his back. To wait and wonder if I
would see him again. To picture those mutilated bodies in my mind’s
eyes, and his face on each and every one. I would never forgive
myself if he were hurt. I’d blame myself for not being
there.

I knew feeling as I did was
illogical. What difference could I, a pitifully weak human, make in
a fight with a supremely powerful Dark Cousin? But I could not
spend the rest of my life thinking,
if
only
or
what
if.
I had to be there.

His heat surged over me. “I can’t risk
losing you, Tiff.” His hand clamped on my upper arm and hustled me
to the door.

“
I am staying,” I said
firmly, “because I will die in little pieces waiting for you to
come back to me.”

We stopped suddenly. Royal kind of
twirled me and pulled me in, his arms like steel. I managed to see
his face, and eyes with something like triumph in them.

I tipped my head so it cleared his
shoulder. “What is that look supposed to mean?”

He just smiled.

I just broke Tiff’s Relationship Rule
Number One: never tell a guy what he means to you.

I stepped in and grasped the front of
his jacket with both hands, brought my face to his and spoke
softly. “Don’t do this to me, Royal. I have to be in on this. We’re
a team, remember? If our positions were reversed, you wouldn’t let
me go in alone.”

He sighed. His body loosened. “We will
search every orifice of this place. When we move, stay with me.
When we enter a room, remain at the door.”

“
Maybe.”

His brought his hands up to cover mine
and looked in my eyes, his own narrowed in concern.

Gareth reminded us we had a job to do.
“Are you prepared?”

Royal nodded, yet his gaze never left
mine, as if reluctant to do so.

“
And you, Miss
Banks?”

I gave myself a mental shake to escape
the spell of Royal’s eyes and stepped back from him.

“
As good as I’ll get.” I
thought of what we would face and a parade of mutilated people
waltzed through my mind. Royal was right, I was ill-equipped for
this. “Unless you have an armory.”

A muffled noise from Gareth. “Follow
me,” he said.

“
Where?”

His brows almost met in a frown. “To
the armory.”

They
did
have an armory?
Well I’ll be damned
. . .
.

***

The armory turned out to be more a
museum. I could have explored it all day. I suppose, given their
close association with my world, it’s not surprising so many
objects I saw in Bel-Athaer are similar to their counterparts on
Earth, and what I found in the armory was no exception. I could
imagine some spears in the hands of Roman foot soldiers.

I tried to move smoothly, but I
clanked. The breast and back plate came as a set, but made for a
larger, wider person, so the edges hit as I walked and the buckles
joining the two pieces kept snagging on my sweater. I rotated my
shoulders to ease the weight on them.

I hugged my armor as we descended a
flight of deep steps between smooth, deep-sea-green walls, trying
to muffle the noise with my arms. My shoulder holster didn’t fit
over the armor, so I carried it bunched in my left hand, the Ruger
in my right.

“
You guys don’t believe in
elevators?” I muttered.

Royal, on the step below,
turned his head to give me an old-fashioned look
. They don’t need elevators.
Why
would anyone who could move like the wind want to wait for an
elevator?
Duh, Tiff.

The High House is a world encased in
walls, containing much of what you find in a small city. It
provides for every need and convenience apart from crops and meat
animals, which I presume come from elsewhere in Bel-Athaer. We
prowled the cellars where most of what is necessary to sustain the
House operates. I saw carcasses hung in a small meat-processing
plant, and a modern mill to churn out flour. I saw a garage
complete with mechanics bays and a wide ramp climbing to garage
doors. Like most basements back home, the cellars were slightly
above ground level and many rooms had narrow windows near the
ceiling through which pale light penetrated.

When we came to a wide,
empty, cavern-like room with vaulted ceilings, my feet wanted to
turn in the other direction. I hesitated, looking into the shadowed
depths.
It’s not the same place.
Yet my heart thudded painfully. Memories ran riot
as I surreptitiously looked for glittering crystal, an old blood
stain on the floor.

Did this place rouse Royal’s memories
of the duel with his brother Kien in a cavern below Morté Tescién?
How often did he dwell on the events of that evening, when Kien
abducted and tortured me, when he killed his brother to save my
life?

His arm slipped around my shoulders in
a comforting embrace, his strength supported and guided me across
to the door at the far end.

“
You’re cold.” He released
me so he could shrug off his jacket and hold it out. “Put this
on.”

He didn’t fool me. He knew the cool
air didn’t make me shiver - the heavy jacket was another layer of
protection. I didn’t argue. I slid into the jacket, then stretched
my arms to make sure the size and weight would not hamper my
flexibility.

The House was unnaturally silent. The
demons made no noise at all as they walked, not a footfall, not a
heavy breath. We passed through the vast building. I did not
obediently remained at the doors as the Gelpha silently drifted
through this room and that chamber, but I stayed close to
Royal.

I lost track of time. Motion became
monotonous.

Chapter Sixteen

“
Watch yourself here,”
Royal said in a low voice. “It is the oldest part of the House and
some areas are unstable.”

It looked that way. I saw how far
renovation had progressed when we walked past stacks of cut timber,
other building materials and tools, leaving the smooth floors and
glowing walls behind. Cable looped along the ceiling, dangling a
light bulb every ten feet or so. The floor was worn and slightly
pitted, the walls plain brick to which old plaster adhered in
patches. More plaster filled a big brown dumpster.

After looking into two large, empty
rooms, we arrived at the next and cautiously eased inside. It
reminded me of the early-twentieth-century factories crumbling away
on Wall Avenue. Like the wide passage leading here, it felt damp.
Bricks had come away from the walls and shattered over the filthy
floor. Verdigris coated a metal staircase which went up to a square
hole in the wooden ceiling. Dust lay thick over everything. Chains
of heavy metal links looped down from girders knobbed with rivets.
Amid the chaos of huge, rusting boilers, a massive furnace, flues,
pipes, wooden crates and metal tables, a conveyor belt of wooden
slats separated the room. Crates and large barrels filled the small
spaces between equipment. To the left of the door, two rectangular
windows near the ceiling let in a little natural light.

Anything could be hiding in
here.

Royal flicked switches and naked bulbs
in metal baskets on the walls shone dull yellow light.

The Gelpha moved so they did not stand
in shafts of pale sunlight spackled with glittering dust. I walked
beside the wall away from the doors and stopped next the staircase,
peering at the dark opening above my head.

The doors, which we
left ajar, exploded inward, and I couldn’t see because something
wet spattered my face, getting in my eyes. In the seconds I took to
frantically wipe them, I heard screams and grunts and the sickening
thwack of flesh hitting a hard surface.

Blood was everywhere, including on me,
gumming my lashes, dribbling down my face. Demons lay on the floor
among their standing companions. I had never seen naked shock on a
demon’s face; I saw it now.

The doors closed with an
echoing
clang
. A
strong, brief gale battered me, making me stagger. A demon groaned,
then silence.

Royal and three other
demons stood like statues. Then Royal made a small motion with his
hand as he looked at me from the corner of his eyes, his fingers
twitching at the doors:
get out of here,
Tiff.
But I couldn’t move. Horror rooted my
feet to the floor. Blood and gobbets of bloody flesh coated me! I
wanted to thrash and scream, claw at my skin and hair, but I was in
shock. I remained motionless, hiccupping out tiny sobs.

I heard a muttering from above. I
craned my head and saw Dagka Shan crouched on a girder, bare chest,
blue jeans and sneakers, long raven-black hair pouring over his
shoulders.

We were a frozen tableau.

He leaped outward, spreading his arms,
sailing down like a bird, and landed lightly on his feet. Then he
was among them.

It happened too fast to see more than
a body flying, hear a gurgling scream. Blood fountained in all
directions. And when all motion ceased, I stood in the middle of
the warehouse with more blood my face, smearing my torso, dripping
from my hair, with bodies on the ground. Royal lay with them,
spread-eagled on his back, arms akimbo.

I came back to life. “Royal!” and
stepped toward him, but a whoosh of air and Dagka Shan stood
between us.

He was as Victorian Elizabeth Hulme
and his victims described him. Long blacker-than-black hair, brown
skin, broad cheekbones and long-lashed black eyes. I would have
thought him beautiful if not for the carmine on his skin and the
long, thick fingernails like the horny talons of a huge carrion
bird.

I shrank inside - strands of flesh
hung from his fingers.

He came toward me, slowly, peering
intently, his head jogging from side to side.

I lifted my gun and fired, but my
target disappeared. My bullet ricocheted, pinging once, twice,
three times in rapid succession.

I waited, skin and clothes tacky with
blood, hair stuck to my face. My gasping breaths felt like they
would tear my throat apart if Dagka Shan didn’t do it first. I
wanted to scream at the silence.

And Royal sprawled on the floor, so
still.

I felt movement, the displacement of
air, heard a muffled noise. I swung and fired a second
later.

He crashed into sight, hit
the floor and slid on his side across the room, came up against a
boiler and lay still.

Shaking, teeth chattering, I griped my
Ruger in hands going numb from the desperate hold I had on the
weapon.

Dagka Shan rolled on his side, on his
knees and stood. Blood oozed sluggishly from a bullet wound in his
right shoulder.

He stepped closer. “What are you? I
have never seen your like before.”

He left me till last to take a better
look at me?

His gaze flicked down to my hand as I
squeezed the trigger. I’m not sure whereabouts I hit him, but I
know the bullet penetrated flesh. He staggered; in a split second,
he came at me. His hand lashed out. The Ruger flew across the room.
The tips of his nails stung my throat.

He hissed as he inspected his hand
where the spiked collar beneath my turtle-neck tore his fingers,
the collar which stopped him ripping out my throat.

He snarled, curled his hand into a
fist and punched me in the chest.

***

I danced in the kitchen like Lily
Tomlin in Nine To Five, minus the birds and butterflies. Jack and
Mel regarded me from where they stood against the east
wall.

I held my hands out. “Come on! It’s
time to go!”

Mel sank into the wall. “Are you sure
about this?”

I spun a circle, my skirt swirling
out. “Look!” I gazed dreamily at the shining, door-sized square of
silver light. “It’s beautiful.”

“
Sure, from this side,”
Jack said.

I flapped my hands at him.
“Silly! It’ll be
wonderful
on the other side. Trust me.”

Jack folded his arms, an obstinate set
to his shoulders. “You go ahead. I’m staying.”