Demon Demon Burning Bright, Whisperings book four

W
hisperings: Dead Demon
Burning Bright.

Linda Welch.

This digital 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 2011 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,
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rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

December 2011.

ISBN:
978-1-4660-9308-9

Smashwords Edition.

Demon, Demon burning bright

in our rituals of the night.

What immortal cast of die

did shape thy soul to yearn for mine?

In what distant deeps or skies,

turns your world of funeral pyres?

On what wings does death conspire?

By whose cloaked hand will we expire?

What did smolder to make your start,

twist such fetid sinews into a heart?

And as that corruption began to beat,

why turn your hand to chain my feet?

Why the scythe - to secure my bane?

In what furnace burns thy brain?

Whose poor soul did you first grasp

within your ravenous evil clasp?

And when you did withdraw your skewer,

why mount their heads upon a mirror?

Did you smile, your work to see?

Did he who made hellfire make thee?

Demon, Demon burning bright,

in our rituals of the night;

What immortal court up high

finds me so cursed that I should die?

Kenneth Paul Jones

Facing the window, the big man stared
directly into the blazing yellow orb balanced on the rooftops
across the street. His long hair blazed copper and gold against the
backdrop of the setting sun. The crisp white T-shirt emphasized his
skin tone so it gleamed like pale, polished copper. Legs apart,
hands braced above shoulder height on the vertical wood of the
window frame, his posture stretched the already tight shirt so it
clung, and drew attention to well-defined muscles in back, arms and
wide shoulders.

The street was quiet this Sunday afternoon
with only a few coffee shops open for business. No traffic spoiled
the silence. A melancholy guitar riff from The Club rode the air,
softened by distance.

“I had the feeling of standing on the edge
of a precipice,” he said softly in a smooth, melodic baritone. “If
I took one step I would fall into her glacial blue eyes, or shatter
at her feet. There was no mistaking her. The pale, luminous skin.
The silver-white hair. And those eyes. Her silver-white brows
arched as if she constantly questioned all she saw.”

His friend sighed histrionically. His
cultured accent spoke of the rain-drenched streets of London as he
drawled, “I felt the same way when I met her, old chap.”

Two inches shorter than the big man’s
six-six, elegantly attired in a dark gray, silver pinstriped
three-piece suit over a white silk shirt, he lounged on an office
chair, one gray leather-shod foot propped on his knee as he buffed
it with a white handkerchief. Rather than looking at odds with his
lean young face, his long, shimmering silver-gray hair stranded
with glistening black, pale skin and smoke-gray eyes with pupils
like glossy hematite complimented an air of sophistication. He was
slimmer than his friend, but padding did not bolster his jacket’s
wide shoulders. The perfectly tailored ensemble clothed a body ropy
with muscle.

“My smile set rigidly under her withering
regard and slipped when she spun away and stormed from the Squad
Room. She was. . . .”

“Discombobulated?”

The copper-haired man sounded amused. “That,
and angry. The flush on her face and neck fascinated me.”

“Ah, that beautiful, rosy blush.” The
gray-haired man studied his handkerchief, glanced around the small
office, then tossed the slightly soiled object in the trashcan
under the desk. “And she blushes so easily.”

The big man swung, putting his back to the
window. A broad smile revealed even white teeth. His copper eyes
seemed to have captured the sun’s light for they shone as if
burnished. “And I can think of
so
many ways to make her
blush.”

His friend hiked an eyebrow. “I must say,
I’m not accustomed to that smug expression on your normally
melancholy countenance, Royal.”

Royal Mortensen shrugged. “Did you know they
call her the Ice Queen?”

His friend frowned thoughtfully. “The Ice
Queen? I admit, she can be
slightly
cool when one first
meets her.”

“They mean her height and coloring, but she
is inclined that way toward certain people, Chris,” Royal said
wryly.

Christopher Plowman coughed couthly into his
hand. “Myself not included.”

“That’s quite an ego you have there.”

“What do you mean? Tiff adores me! And no,
you may not frown at me.”

“Am I frowning? Are you sure it’s not my
normally melancholy countenance?”

Chris flipped his hand dismissively. “Pray
continue, dear fellow. So, you were drooling over Tiff in the
Clarion Police Department?”

“She was magnificent,” Royal said, the
memory briefly evoking a smile. “I followed her outside. She did
not walk; she stamped down the steps, braid beating her spine,
swinging on a neck pale and slender as a marble column. I was
behind her in a second. I caught her on the sidewalk, where she
said she saw me as I truly am, not my human glamour. I asked what
she thought I was.”

He smiled again. “She said, ‘I don’t know
what you call yourself, Mister Pointy-Teeth. You tell me.’”

“You don’t have pointed teeth.”

“She assumed I did.”

They were born on Earth, but belonged to
another dimension. Royal flashed bright, white, even teeth. Chris’
teeth were slightly pointed.

“She did not wait for my reply,” Royal
continued as he walked around the desk, then leaned his hip on the
edge and folded his arms over his chest. “She jumped in her car and
sped away, leaving me thinking, of course, but do you know why you
see us as we are?” His brow creased as he lost his smile. “I went
to her home later. Our conversation was . . . interesting. It
quickly became apparent she knew nothing of her heritage and little
of mine. I decided to stay close to her. Her talent could help me
find Lawrence, and when Caesar and Phaid came after her, I became
afraid for her safety.”

Chris’ eyes narrowed. “But you didn’t tell
her the truth,” he accused.

“To what avail?” Royal stood and flung his
arms out like exclamations. “Would the knowledge make her happy?
No. She would chew at it as a dog on a bone, but unlike a dog,
never crack the bone to reach the delicacy inside. If clues to her
origins existed, they were buried deep in Bel-Athaer; how could she
find and decipher them, a woman to whom our world and people were
alien? And the edict is in place for good reasons, my friend.”

“Edict, schmedict,” Chris responded
contemptuously, sounding more Brooklyn than British. “It does not
apply to Tiff.”

Royal lapsed back on the desk again,
supporting himself with the heels of his hands. “I did not know
that, and neither did you. I’m surprised, give the strength of your
feelings, you did not tell her.”

“It was in my mind, but I had a Dark Cousin
breathing down my neck. I’m fond of this head; I wanted to keep it
on my shoulders. But that’s beside the point.
You
, she
trusted.
You
should have told her.”

Royal glowered. “You think I did not know
that? Believe me, I agonized over telling or not telling her. But
she distrusted our brothers and detested our Dark Cousins.” Emotion
darkened his copper eyes. “I supposed the truth would appall her. I
could not bear to see horror and self-loathing in those beautiful
eyes, or frustration when she asked questions for which I had no
answers.”

He dropped his gaze. “Time passed, spinning
me farther from any possibility I could disclose what I knew. I
feared the knowledge would drive her from me, for by then I was
deeply in love with her. She was in my blood and bones.

“I told myself I had no choice, I must obey
the edict. It was an excuse. I knew she would ask why I kept the
truth from her for so long when I knew she craved it. She would say
my secrecy made a lie of our relationship.

“But my love for her was never a lie.”

His voice fell to a few decibels above a
whisper. “I did not mean to fall in love. It was not love at first
sight. But the first kiss - I tasted her on my tongue and was lost.
I wanted to see her pale hair loose and feel it stroke my skin. I
wanted to mold my hands to every part of her body. More than that,
I wanted to know her soul.”

He fell silent. Chris cleared his throat,
which sounded dry. “Ah. As I’m sure you know, I have kissed many
women, but Tiff. . . . When I felt her lips -
glk!
”

Chris found himself pinned to the chair by
Royal’s big hands on his shoulders. Gleaming white teeth set in a
kind of rictus-smile were level with his eyes.

“You
kissed
Tiff?” Royal asked
softly.

Appearances can be deceptive. Chris looked
lighter, leaner and less dangerous than Royal, but he was still a
powerful man and could have broken away. However, when he rolled
his eyes up to meet Royal’s, he deduced Royal was perplexed rather
than enraged. And he
had
stretched the boundaries of their
friendship when he kissed Tiff.

And Royal pinned him to the floor by
standing on his feet.

“Royal, have a care. This jacket is pure
silk. And those shoes you’re flattening are Italian leather,
hand-crafted by my man in Piedmont,” he said nonchalantly, to all
appearances totally unconcerned by the fingers digging in his
shoulders.

“Then don’t move - you’ll scuff them on my
soles - and tell me about this kiss.”

“A peck of farewell and brotherly affection,
I assure you.”

“I don’t have a problem with you seducing
other women, but Tiff is unavailable, and you knew when you kissed
her.”

“I told you, a
peck
. For mercy’s
sake, Royal, stop reading more into it.”

Royal released Chris’ shoulders, and his
shoes, but still loomed, looking down thoughtfully.

Chris briskly straightened his cuffs one
after the other. “I will never understand why a Gelpha lord is
ridiculously possessive with his women.”

Royal turned away. “I am not possessive and
it has nothing to do with my position in Lawrence’s Court. I
treasure Tiff, but perhaps that’s a foreign concept to you.”

His back was to Chris as he settled in the
office chair reserved for clients. He did not see the wistful
expression which slid over his friend’s face, here and gone in an
instant.

Royal’s tone deepened ominously as he
swiveled the chair to face Chris. “I did not know she is so much
more than she seemed, until Orcus came to me. What I knew, or
thought I knew; what I could have said – all became
irrelevant.”

Chris’s eyes changed, seeming to become a
flat, darker, murky gray. “The Burning Man.”

“Every child’s nightmare,” Royal said. “I
lay on my belly as they carried me on the gurney through Bon
Moragh. I was paralyzed from the neck down and raged at my
helplessness. From her voice and eyes and posture, I knew the fiend
hurt Tiff, but I could not go to her.

“The gurney stopped. From my prone position,
seconds passed before I realized the bearers had left me.

“I was alone with Orcus.”

Chris licked his suddenly parched lips as he
decided whether now was a good time to ask about the defeat of the
ancient Dark Cousin Dagka Shan in the bowels of the High House. He
knew Royal was seriously injured, and Tiff shot the Cousin. He
dearly wanted to hear the grisly details. But Royal looked inward,
remembering, and would not appreciate an interruption.

“Flame flickered over him, white, and the
glacial blue you find inside crevasse of ice. The color of Tiff’s
eyes. As I watched, he flared brighter, higher. I could not see
what hid inside that pale pyre. He asked if I knew him.

“Close as he stood, I felt no heat on my
face. His fire was cold, like the chill of deep winter. I tried to
make my voice strong as I acknowledged him, but sounded like a
bronchial child.