Demon Hunt (15 page)

With impeccable timing, the Alien Abductees Club members suddenly were framed in the now opened double doors of the back room, staring in awe at the scene. The membership of the club had the same make up as the town of Cripple Creek itself: miners, bikers, hippies, yuppies, and a housewife thrown in for good measure. A large bald man in the front of the group dressed in a biker T-shirt and leather chaps over his jeans let out a war cry before the entire group waded into the fray.

“
Aliens! It’s an invasion!”

Behind him, Betty took a seat at one of the empty tables, pulled a large wad of knitting out of her purse and began to knit. She kept one eye on the chaos and one on the stitch count, mumbling to herself.

The lunacy raged in full force for ten seconds when a throaty feminine voice rang out. The power of the voice’s words overwhelmed the symphony of bedlam and the world froze for everyone in the room. The only exceptions were the men wrestling on the ceiling, Rhi, Pam, Houston, Manius’ servant and Betty, who continued knitting and mumbling.

“
Enough.”

Blackthorne and his brother fell to the floor with a crash and started to untangle themselves from each other, the disgust in both men’s faces evident. The rest of the room stayed frozen in time upon the word of the woman standing in the doorway, whose gaze glowed an unearthly shade of blue. Her smile displayed two perfect dimples and a set of extra long and pointy incisors.

Chapter Fifteen

The beautiful newcomer slinked over to the two struggling men and extended a designer boot to administer a swift, unmerciful kick to separate them. All the fires in the room extinguished themselves at the wave of her hand.

Houston stood nearby, motionless. His mouth hung open as he stared at the auburn haired woman, raw shock scarring his face. He obviously recognized her.

Pam whispered in Rhi’s ear. “You know, I’ve seen that chick before - and where I think I’ve seen her is giving me a worse case of the willies than the thing with the hole in its stomach.”

Manius got to his feet first with the help of his assistant and - with a wave of his own hand, not nearly as elegant a movement as the woman’s - the small demons vanished. He looked ruefully at the woman standing before him. “They can’t help it, you know. They come when I’m threatened.”

“
We both know you’re not going to hurt the girl and that you aren’t ready for this, Manius. So why don’t you stop playing games, go home to that tacky mausoleum and sleep this off?” The woman examined her left boot for damage as she spoke. Dressed in black, like Blackthorne, the woman’s designer slacks, cashmere sweater, and knee-length fur jacket oozed feminine sophistication.

Manius smirked as blood from his pulped nose ran down his chin. He ran an abnormally long tongue through the liquid and slurped. His expression should have melted the woman’s bones but she stood firm, unshaken, a chic blade of steel. “Maybe I’ll take the girl and put her on ice until I need her. What do you think, Pearl?”

Behind him, Blackthorne got to his feet, his bloody hands clenching and unclenching.

Pearl pulled an ornate cross from an inner pocket and waved the artifact at Manius, whose eyes glowed red at the sight of the religious symbol. She dropped the long, slender package she held in the other hand throughout this conversation and kicked it over to Blackthorne.

He crouched to retrieve what turned out to be a broadsword, complete with ornate sheath and belt, buckling it around his waist with the ease that comes from years of practice.

“
I’m
so
taking up the Goth look when this evening is over,” Pam whispered to Rhi, still trapped behind her.

“
Ditto.” Rhi wondered where the nearest department store stocking silver crosses was located. “Do you mind moving? I’m too short to see anything!”

“
Oops, sorry.” Pam scooted over and shoved a case of beer over with a foot for Rhi to stand on. Not too proud to be nosy, Rhi jumped on the box to see what had happened.

“
Manius, darling, this so tacky. Next you’ll have me lugging around holy water. By the way your skin is fabulous! What did you do to amuse yourself in your coffin all of those years, sugar? Could you move? What a shame you didn’t have an itty-bitty reading lamp. Just think! You could have read the classics!” The newcomer cocked her head at the seething man, who emanated evil in a cloud, mixed with expensive men’s cologne.

Rhi raised an eyebrow at Pam. “Holy water and coffins?”

Pam didn’t answer but her expression became a bit wild as she watched the drama unfold.

Pearl stalked the floor of the restaurant, now her stage. She nodded towards the sword Blackthorne fastened around his waist. “I don’t know why you didn’t wear your sword tonight, Blackie - he was kidding about the ‘Highlander’ thing. So keep wearing your long jacket, there’s a good boy.”

Manius managed to smolder and roll his eyes at the same time.

“
We won’t allow you to take her and you know it,” Pearl continued softly. “Or you would’ve taken her weeks ago. So we can confront each other now and invite the National Guard in to pick up the pieces of what’s left of the town. Or we can wait until there’s a chance of getting what we each want. You want your precious skull to do the ‘world domination’ thing and we want … well you know what we want.” Pearl held out one slender hand. “May the best person win. And quit screwing with the girl - I mean it.”

Manius took the offered hand, careful to maintain his distance from the cross. Pearl raised an eyebrow, her expression one of annoyance, as if he had offered her impertinence at a cocktail party.

“
Oh, I don’t want the world, just a good chunk of the globe to amuse myself with. I definitely want Manhattan, L.A. and Western Europe. I would rather not have the Arabian Peninsula, Israel, most of Russia, Mississippi or Utah. Too much work and body odor.” Manius took the handkerchief his assistant offered and pressed the fabric to his bloody face.

“
Why not Mississippi? There are some fabulous restaurants in Biloxi, you know,” Pearl pointed out, openly rubbing the palm of her hand on her pant leg.

“
I’ll endeavor to sample them as soon as I’m done here, Pearl. Things are a bit busy at the moment,” Manius told her and bowed. “Until we meet again, lady.”

He turned to leave the devastated bar, the patrons still frozen in time. He paused in the doorway to examine the group. “Pearl, you still look delicious. Maybe after the war, we can hook up again
… well, you know how much I like the women of your family.”

A spasm of fury rippled across Pearl’s face, extinguished immediately. She wrinkled her pert nose in distaste. “That was
business
. Besides, Manius, honestly - you weren’t very good. It’s called
foreplay
, sugar.”

For a moment, the battered man looked a bit taken aback. Then, with a sideways smirk in Rhi’s direction, he silently left the bar with his lackey in tow. Rhi pushed past Pam’s extended arm to tumble over the bar and arrived at Blackthorne’s side while the room returned to life. He pushed her helping hand back and stood, his face streaming blood. Sirens howled on the street and the unfrozen patrons of the restaurant stumbled around in bewilderment.

Pearl grabbed Houston by the arm, who stared at her in stunned fascination, and ran for the back. Blackthorne followed on her heels, dragging Rhi and Pam brought up the rear, waving her gun in the air. No one but Betty, who glanced up from her work to smile and wave, witnessed the group’s exit. Not the biker/alien abductee who struggled to rise from the floor, not the policeman who stood in the alleyway outside of the back door, whom they hurried directly past.

Rhi could see Nicholas Boyd, the chief, alighting from his vehicle and trudging through the snowdrift to the restaurant, mumbling about “damned alien freaks” and “… she better not be involved in this, damned woman” under his breath. The chief didn’t look up as he stomped past. She wanted to call out for help or scream vampires were kidnapping her but she couldn’t make her vocal cords work. There wasn’t time to dwell on this problem as she was stuffed into a sleek black SUV.

When Blackthorne took her hand to guide her into the vehicle she suppressed the urge to strike out. The last thing she wanted to see was the blue flash in his eyes.

Once seated, Pam reached for her seatbelt but then thought better of the move. “I guess this is kind of a moot point now, huh?”

Concentrating on the man in the passenger seat, who maneuvered the broadsword to avoid banging his legs on the ornate scabbard, Rhi did not reply. It would be interesting to see how he would manage to draw the weapon if they were attacked on the way to wherever they were being taken. Blackthorne caught her gaze and shook his head as she lowered a trembling hand to try the door handle.

“
What were those
things
in there? Where the hell did they come from?” She shuddered at the mental picture of the fiendish creatures.

“
Usually they’re harmless. A piece of spite, a shadow spotted out of the corner of the eye in a dark room, a bit of bad luck knocking in the night and you explain away as ‘the house settling’.” His face grew grim. “They’re Tommy Knockers. Gremlins. Demons. Take your pick”

“
Tommy Knockers?” Rhi and Pam exchanged glances. They knew about the tales of the small demons of the mines.

“
Here the demons have always been stronger because they’re closer to their true home, Hell. And they’ve been freed from the constraints the local witches put on them a long time ago. Manius is building an army.” His voice was velvety and gruff. He turned away from her to stare ahead.

Rhi stared out of the window at the night, now filled with a thousand hidden red eyes.

Pam leaned over to whisper in her ear. “At least he’s in touch with his feminine side. He is, after all, letting the girl drive.” She straightened up with a yowl of pain as Houston dug an elbow into her side. “Ow!”

“
Would you please shut up and not piss the scary immortals off?” Houston flinched as Pearl glanced into the rearview mirror and winked.

The truck’s interior was silent as the vehicle pulled away from the curb and up the street, towards the dark backstreets.

The turn on Bennett revealed the same misty couple in Victorian garb Rhi spotted earlier standing beneath one of the lampposts. The young woman raised a lace-gloved hand as they drove past. Rhi gasped when she realized that the couple was transparent. The mottled green of the lamppost showed clearly through their ethereal bodies. Her gaze met Pam’s from across the seat, who shook her head. Ghosts were no biggie, not after the scene at the restaurant. Rhi tried not to swallow her tongue as she kept the scream trapped in the pit of her stomach. The gaslights of downtown faded away.

The SUV glided down several back streets to arrive in front of one of the more ornate and well-preserved Victorian mansions in town. The magnificent three-story Vernacular Queen Anne had been painted in varying pastel shades of lilac and towered over the other houses on the street. The well-kept yard, ornamental garden and small pines were garnished with snow. The wrought iron fence was a bit tall. The iron tip of each fence bar appeared to be dangerously sharp to Rhi’s eye. She caught sight of blue sparks dancing along the top of the barrier and shook her head. Why was she surprised?

They pulled through a mechanized gate and into the estate’s carriage house.

Houston crushed his Stetson in his hands as he stared out the window. “You would live in
this
house. After all, you were a good friend of the original owner, Charles Tutt. Or did he build the place for you in the first place?”

The SUV rolled to a stop in the modernized garage/carriage house, as both women stared at their friend. Pearl turned to examine the wiry little ex-pilot.

“
Charlie liked to be tied up, after I dressed him in a corset and some rouge. And you are a little too well informed, Mr. Houston. Maybe
you
should be tied up - but I’d let you leave off the dress.”

Houston betrayed no surprise at the mention of their driver’s sexual habits. “There’s not much that shocks me anymore, ma’am. Seeing and meeting you is worth it, even if you decide to kill me.”

Her violet gaze glowed with electric light. “
I
don’t randomly kill people, sweetie. I prefer to pick and choose. I think you already know that, though, or you wouldn’t be bold enough to dredge the subject up.”

Pam elbowed Houston - hard. “Are you going to let us in on who your girlfriend is? I’ve got a feeling that I don’t want to know but … well, you know me.”

Houston wiped a few tiny beads of sweat off his forehead, watching Pam open the truck door before answering. He glanced at Pearl, who had exited the vehicle and stood waiting for them in the door to the dogtrot leading to the house as they lingered.

She nodded, giving him permission to speak, like a queen granting a boon.

Blackthorne took Rhi’s arm as she stepped out onto the running board of the SUV and remained beside her, his large hand wrapped around her arm. The heat of his hand through her coat made her break out in a sweat. Would his hands smoke when he touched her? Which brother had put the burns on her skin in her dreams?