Demon Hunt (7 page)

Behind his back Pam pointed her index finger at her head and swirled it around.

Rhi swallowed a smile.

Thanking Rhi for the hospitality and admonishing both women to stay out of the woods until he checked out what had left the blood in the snow, Bobby Wayne took his leave of them, marching out through the snow in true ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ style.

“
Yes, he’s as nutty as my Aunt Roxy’s Alabama rum fruitcake,” Pam told her in a low voice as soon as he got out of range.

Rhi raised an eyebrow in the direction of their latest visitor. “I’m beginning to believe I’m living in a train station with all the company I’ve had this morning. How close does that guy live to me?”

“
Over the hill. He’s harmless and if the revolution comes tomorrow we’ll have a place to hide and food to eat. But I don’t want to think about what he’ll want in exchange.”

The women began a long morning of unpacking various boxes of belongings that seemed, to Rhi, to belong to another woman. She held up a black evening gown covered in bugle beads. “Where would I wear this thing up here?” she asked and tossed the garment in the pile for Goodwill.

Gasping, Pam snatched the dress back up. “Honey, if I looked like you do wearing this thing, I would
find
a place to wear it.” She dug through the pile of discards to see what other treasures had been tossed. “This stuff is beautiful! What could make you want to throw clothes like these away?”

“
These aren’t me, not anymore,” Rhi replied. She held up a dress, noting the shimmer of light on the beads and the slight scent of Mike’s cigarette smoke that still clung to the fabric. She shook her head and dropped the dress into the pile, where it slithered, snakelike, into the mound.

“
You’ll need the lost part of yourself someday, Rhi.” Pam had wormed Rhi’s entire life story out of her by judicious applications of sympathy and beer the night Rhi moved into the neighborhood.

Grabbing another beaded gown, Rhi dispassionately examined the slick lines of the dress. “I’m not sure what part of me ever wore this.”

Pam dove into the pile of boxes. “At least you’re at the point you’ll consider a man in your life. When I met you, your only ambition was to be the old lady down the street with cats.”

“
I remembered I didn’t like cats,” Rhi replied pointedly. Pam tried to foist one of her charges off on her at least once a day. The other woman ignored her, digging through the box.

Rhi gazed out the window at the azure sky. Air was a knife-like cold that fought to crawl between the windowpane and sash.

Pam straightened and her back popped loudly in the sudden silence. “Can I ask a favor?”

“
After unpacking and hogging every bit of pork sausage in my house? Shoot.”

“
I think we’re gonna get more snow, I can smell it.” Pam twisted a silk scarf in her hands and for a second her mask fell, revealing a haunted expression. “They’ll need an icebreaker to plant Marie up in the cemetery. I think we need to go to the funeral. I know she was a pain but I hate the idea of her family alone in the cemetery, wondering where all of her friends are. I’m gonna go and I’m gonna fake it. Will you go with me?”

Rhi put a comforting arm around her friend’s bony shoulders. “I think that can be arranged
and
I think we both need hot cocoa with fresh whipped cream and nutmeg.”

“
Fresh whipped cream and nutmeg? Have you been watching Emeril again?”

* * * *

Outside, the wind whipped up glimmering clouds of powder and the swaying pines moaned. Several sets of eyes watching the house turned from the view of the window and vanished into the brush of the mountain.

In the living room, Ellie Mae hauled her large golden form off of the pile of pillows she shared with the little girl and nosed the cold glass of a nearby window. Wind blew hunks of snow off the roof into the glass, rattling the pane. The dog waited.

* * * *

A few miles away, Chief Boyd barreled down an ice-covered back road with the typical lack of concern shown by most of locals when confronted with deadly patches of ice underneath their vehicles.

He’d kept watch on the area surrounding Horse Thief Gulch for weeks, as ordered.

Boyd allowed himself a moment of pity for the girl and whatever she had been caught up in before a flash of movement in the sun-dappled woods caught his eye. He skidded to a stop in the center of the desolate stretch of dirt road. After a long pause, he reached for one of the rifles in the gun rack and alighted from the truck. A smoldering patch of something that resembled raw meat lay several feet beyond the road. The pile had burned a hole through the crust of snow. He had knelt to poke through the heap with a stick when the barrel of an old-fashioned pistol pressed against his neck.

A whiff of exotic perfume told him exactly who had gotten the drop on him. “I should’ve known you’d be up to your armpits in this mess. I don’t suppose when you kill these things, you could manage to hide the carcasses? They tend to gross people out.”

The silk-smooth voice behind him wove its way into his mind. “And get that muck on my hands? Are you serious? So – how’s our girl today?”

Boyd swore and wondered what he’d done to deserve the return of this particular Cripple Creek curse in his lifetime. He rose and turned to face the owner of the voice with a sigh.

Chapter Seven

A subdued crew manned the casino that evening. After the prerequisite expressions of horror and sorrow over Marie’s death, staff and dealers put on their game faces and went to work. By silent mutual agreement, they told morbid curiosity seekers and reporters employees were not permitted to comment about the murder.

On her table, Rhi rolled her head in a circle, listening for her neck to pop, before she brought her focus back to the card layout.

The blackjack table served as an effective buffer for most of the night against the rehearsed lines of a group of young soldiers up for a day of gambling and fun from Fort Carson. But the happy, mindless banter had begun to wear her down.

She never understood the need or impulse to gamble for hours on end, but gamble the soldiers did as she dealt hand after hand, deflating both their wallets and their pride.

“
They play like kids at Go Fish,” Stephen, the pit boss, whispered from behind her. “Are they drinking strawberry daiquiris? Ten inches of snow on the ground outside and they’re drinking boat drinks!”

“
I think they’re cute,” Rhi whispered back as she cleared her hands and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

Stephen stalked away shaking his head, muttering to himself about the dubious alcoholic tastes of the U.S. military.

Rhi gave the baby-faced recruit seated in front of her a weak grin. “Care to place a bet, sir?”

Her customer shook his shaved head at her, shoving himself back from the table with two startlingly muscular arms, almost falling over in the process. His companions roared with laughter and each anted up another five bucks for the next hand.

Stephen sidled over to whisper in Rhi’s ear, his favorite method of communication when he wanted to insult customers. “They’re cute, like basset hound puppies. Want to take one home? I’ll bet if you get them young, you can train them.”

“
All bets set? Okay!” Rhi called, refusing to acknowledge her supervisor. She dealt the cards. The green felt of the table showed an ace, ten, deuce, seven, and a five for the dealer. The hand would probably be a profitable one for the players if they paid attention.

The dreams of the night before were a haze of sensations in the back of her mind until she caught the stare of the large man occupying a seat at the next table.

Rhi’s heart lodged in her throat as she recognized the animal stare of her dream man. The handsome planes of his face were weathered. Silver threaded his black hair, and his hard, blue-eyed glare made her want to hide.

Her hands faltered as her mind struggled to comprehend how her dream man managed to stroll into the casino to take a seat and play a few hands of blackjack.

Drops of sweat slid down her neck as she concentrated on the cards, willing him to disappear. King, jack, ace, deuce, double, split. The hand was over in seconds. She glanced up.

The moment Rhi met his gaze with her own, the cards on the table leaped into the air as if possessed. Invisible hands swatted her body, lifting her into the air and slamming her against the supervisor’s podium. She sprawled on the paisley carpet of the casino floor, gasping for breath.

The entire four-table blackjack pit erupted into anarchy. Stephen frantically locked down each dealer’s set of chips and froze the games as casino security swarmed the pit.

Rhi’s dream man made his way to the edge of the pit, his hands reaching out. She choked, feeling the unseen pair of hands around her throat. The veins in her eyeballs swelled as eerie laughter filled the air. She could feel calluses on the thick fingers squeezing the life out of her. As she blacked out, the smell of burnt flesh touched her nostrils.

The tall stranger ignored the velvet rope sectioning off the blackjack pit, stepping over the barrier to breeze past a strangely dazed Stephen and oblivious security guards to where Rhi struggled with her invisible attacker. He chanted under his breath as he knelt down and lifted her into his arms.

Her hands tore at the suede of the jacket, desperate for air. The act of touching him sent electric currents through her body. His hand touched the bare skin of her arm, and the other, unseen hands jerked away from her throat.

Rhi balled up on the floor, gasping, as the stranger held her arm in a burning grip. When she finally recovered her self-control, she shoved away from the warm, spicy scent of her rescuer. Staggering to her feet, she almost knocked Pam over, who had leaped into the pit, fresh from a break.

The other woman put an arm around her, steadying Rhi’s shaky stance, her face marked with concern.

Gasping, Rhi explained to her friend what happened.

“
Calm down, sweetheart.” Pam turned on Stephen, who stood gibbering in shock nearby. “Call 911, you twit!”

The stranger, whose clear energy reached straight for Rhi’s heart, spoke up. “I think we have a case of altitude sickness, right, miss?” His face was a mask of calm but Rhi could sense a wealth of emotions emanating from him in an angry cloud.

Not knowing why, she nodded and started to leave as a concerned crowd gathered. The idea of burnt finger marks on the tender skin of her throat underneath the tuxedo shirt and bow tie terrified her. And the man she made love to in a dream stood in front of her. All six-foot-three of him. She swallowed the insane urge to jerk up the back of his jacket and shirt to see if his back had been marked and pocked with the scars of a hundred battles. Scars she had run her fingertips over in a dream.

Pam’s eyes narrowed. “Thank you for your help, mister … I don’t believe that I got your name.”

“
Blackthorne.”

The casino filled with the noise of sirens, and the emergency crew arrived. Rhi’s rescuer turned and strode out of the pit, gliding over the plush red paisley carpet. The crowd moved in behind him to get a better view of the drama. When they scattered, he was gone.

The scent of sulfur drifted past her face, and Pam took her hands as Rhi began to shake uncontrollably.

* * * *

Manius Black leaned against a pillar supporting one of the many porches hanging off the side of the granite monolith christened the ‘Castle’ by Cripple Creek locals, gazing at the magnificent vista of night sky over the mountains.

A frosted glass of Blue Goose vodka, straight up, stood nearby on an elegant side table. A delicate plate holding an eight-ounce tin of Iranian Beluga caviar accompanied the cocktail. Manius’ snack was presented in a rose ice bowl sculpture accompanied by artfully arranged chopped egg, sour cream, and toasted slices of baguette. The petite little chef who so carefully prepared the food would wet himself if he had any idea what his employer preferred for dinner.

Adequate fare, Manius decided as he lifted a wafer of bread to his lips, smeared with an obscene amount of the caviar. Last night’s snack sated his other
appetite as well as having served the purpose of building the fear in the town he and his minions fed on.

The lord of the castle had chosen his attire to coordinate with his new home, his sculpted body encased in Armani casual. His clean-shaven face and coiffed, coal black hair was a striking combination. He liked to think that he resembled Michelangelo’s David – and he did, except for the petulance that hovered around his mouth and his almost feminine, full, red lips.

“
Reunions are such a bore - until the old wounds are trotted out and opened up for examination.” He smiled at the thought of his brother’s face when the girl started to choke. What a shame he could not have been there in person.

“
Sir?” a respectful voice asked. Manius turned towards his assistant, Troy Myers. The slim, blonde man stood at full attention nearby.

“
Nothing, my friend,” he replied. “This place makes me dwell on the past too much. Let’s go try out the new plasma television and see what the Home Shopping Network is offering this evening. I think some washed-up sitcom star is selling dolls tonight.”