The Demon Hunters (5 page)

“
Briefly,” Royal said.
“Gia’s companion disappeared and she suspects foul
play.”

We were not the only
private eyes in the area, so why come to us?
And what about the cops?
“Have you
talked to the police?”

“
We did, but we feel they
are not giving Rio’s disappearance the priority it deserves,” said
Daven.

Gia spoke in a low husky voice. I had
to lean forward to hear her better. “Rio has a certain reputation
in Clarion, a reputation long outdated. He also has a criminal
record. The police are in no hurry to find him.”

I leaned back again and clasped my
hands. “Before we go any further, why did you come to
us?”

Gia looked my way. “Do you know who I
am, Miss Banks?”

She said it like I should know her. I
firmed my jaw and nodded once. “I haven’t I’ve read your books, but
I know who you are.”

She smiled slightly, but it
came and went in a flash. “We came to you for the reasons one
normally uses a private agency, because you
are
private, and because you have an
excellent reputation.”

Excellent reputation? Three cases in
eight months? Or did she mean the cases I worked with Clarion PD?
Why did I get the feeling she lied through her teeth?

But I couldn’t very well argue with
her. “Why don’t you tell us what you know and we’ll decide if this
is something we can help you with. Start with Rio’s full name and
this reputation you mentioned just now.”

She gently disengaged her hand from
Daven’s, leaned back and crossed those long, long legs. “Rio is of
Puerto Rican descent. His full name is Alissario Arellano Borrego
and he grew up on Eighteenth Street. We often visit Clarion because
his family still live here. We keep a small apartment in Bayle
Court for that purpose.”

Ah, now I understood why the police
were not busting their asses to find Alissario Borrego.

Clarion is a small city by US
standards, but has a relatively big gang problem, and it’s been a
problem for a long time. Although they’ve only recently become of
interest to the media, there have always been gangs in Clarion.
You’ll find three-generational gangsta families on Eighteenth. Not
just Eighteenth, either. They are found as far north as Second
Street and west to Ward Avenue.

“
He’s a gangsta,” I
said.

“
He
was
a known gang member, many years
ago. He was arrested and jailed several times for possession of and
dealing in illegal substances. He was involved in a number of
public disturbances,” Gia said matter-of-factly. “But that was long
ago. I met Rio in 2004. He severed his affiliation soon after
that.”

Rare, very rare, unless death cut
short the membership. To my knowledge, and I admit that’s not
extensive, leaving a gang is all but impossible. “Not easy to
do.”

“
No, it was
not.”

I waited, but she didn’t
elaborate.

“
Do you believe his
personal history has bearing on his disappearance?” Royal
asked.

Daven replied, “We don’t know. We have
absolutely no idea what happened to Rio.”

“
But you’re sure he
disappeared? He didn’t take off?” I asked.

As Gia spoke, she clasped and
unclasped her hands as if to stop herself from wringing them.
“Although Rio was involved in the drug market in his youth, he was
not a user. None of his family is. Eight days ago, he discovered
his younger brother was addicted to crack cocaine. Rio took Rojero
to a motel in Tremonton to help him over the initial days of
withdrawal. He called me three days ago to tell me he and Rojero
were returning to Clarion. When he didn’t come home, I telephoned
his parents’ house. Rojero said Rio left him at the door two days
ago. They have not seen him and neither have I.”

She reminded me of the shades I see
and talk to, whose faces are frozen at their time of death and body
language is the only mode of expression left to them. Not that she
was expressionless all the time, but every now and then her face
went blank in an eerie kind of way, as if it seemed to . . . come
to rest, the same for Daven.

They were not just odd,
they were eerie. They gave me the creeps. They scared me. That tiny
voice inside my head kept repeating,
nonhuman
. I wanted to get angry,
because I’d rather be angry than scared, but just looking at the
woman, I felt kind of drained, lethargic.

And something about the way Royal sat,
his brief, stilted gestures; he appeared tense and nervous, which
was unlike him.

I pushed it from my mind and tried to
concentrate. I saw little to go on so far, but I recalled cases for
Clarion PD where we initially had just as little to work
with.

Royal leaned forward, elbows on knees
and hands clasped, but back still rigid. “You spoke to
Rojero?”

“
As far as he knew, Rio was
heading home,” Daven said.

“
And you didn’t speak to
the parents?”

Gia looked down at her
clasped hands. “We have an uneasy alliance where Rio is concerned.
They don’t approve of me, an older
gringo
woman, but they tolerate me
because Rio loves me and we don’t abuse each other. But they would
not discuss Rio, whatever the circumstances.”

“
Has he been threatened?
Did he have reason to fear anyone?”

“
Not to my
knowledge.”

I gnawed on my lower lip. We were
silent for a few minutes while traffic hummed outside the windows.
The Borrego family would not talk to me, but I knew someone who
would, if I felt desperate.

“
And there’s nothing more
you can tell us?” I asked.

The two looked at each other, looked
back at us. “I think not,” Daven said.

I started to my feet. “If you’d give
us a moment, my partner and I would like to confer.”

Royal’s hand on my wrist pulled me
back down to the couch. He leaned back, crossed one leg over the
other and put his arm across my shoulders. “I don’t think that’s
necessary. Of course we will do all we can to help you.”

What?

The bunched muscles in
Royal’s arm pressed on my shoulders, his entire body tight.
What
was
going on?
Hidden from view, I dug my elbow in his side.

He ignored the jab and echoed my
previous thoughts. “There’s not much to go on but we have taken
cases with less.”

Astonished, I managed to keep it off
my face. This was not the way it worked. We were partners, we made
decisions together and one of us didn’t take on a case without
consulting the other. And I didn’t know if I wanted this case. In
fact, I didn’t, because these two frightened me.

I smiled thinly. “I don’t suppose
Royal offered you something to drink?”

“
Nothing for me,” Gia
said.

“
I’m fine,” said
Daven.

I slipped out from beneath Royal’s
arm. “I need coffee and don’t tell me you ate all the
donuts.”

“
I didn’t make it to the
Moose.”

He meant The Mad Moose, a bakery and
coffee house across the street. I grabbed his hand and hauled him
upright. “Come show me again how to use your fancy new coffee
maker.”

I didn’t give him the chance to
refuse. I dragged him to the kitchen, where I let go his hand,
pulled the coffee maker out on the counter and opened the cabinet
where he kept coffee.

“
What’s going on?” I asked
under my breath.

His shook his head, a small, brisk
shake as his eyes slid to them and back to me. He didn’t want to
talk about them while they were in the room.

I looked back along the room - they
should not be able to hear me unless they had superlative hearing,
as Royal did.

I tried to catch his eye as he filled
a filter with coffee, loaded the machine and started it, and I know
he felt me staring, but he would not look at me. As water dripped
into the carafe, he went back to our guests. With my back to them,
I fumed. Royal should not have spoken up for both of us without
talking to me first.

With the pot making bubbly noises in
the background, I went back to them. Gia smoothly rose up and
turned to me. I had to stop my feet stepping back away from her.
Her expression was bland, but I felt inexplicably threatened. She
smiled without warmth. “We must be going.”

Something was very wrong, and not just
that they weren’t human beings. I knew it. Why did I feel
threatened? Was it her manner, her smile, the way she stood? I
didn’t know what made me bristle, but animal instinct prickled up
the back of my neck. I blinked at her. “Okay. But we should meet
again. Names, addresses and phone numbers would be helpful, and
perhaps we can dig a little deeper into Rio’s past and current
activities?”

She elegantly shrugged one shoulder.
“I can come to your house this evening if you wish.”

I looked into her big dark eyes,
trying to see what lay behind the enigmatic gaze. Up close I saw
they were not black, but the darkest brown I had ever
seen.

“
Okay,” I said.

Gia swirled her long red cloak over
her shoulders and put up the hood. The color would make her stand
out on the street like a giant fire hydrant; as if she wanted to
hide and attract attention at the same time.

They left the apartment and I stood at
the window, waiting for them to appear in the street, but they must
have gone to the parking lot out back.

I struggled to put it
together in my head.
Why did I agree to
her coming to my home? I never invite clients to my
home.

I turned to Royal. “Okay, what
happened just then?”

Royal warily returned my gaze. “We
took a case.”

I walked around the couch
and stopped inches from him, glaring in his face.
“
You
took on a
case, but that’s not what I mean. Tell me why I just calmly agreed
to her coming to my house? Have you ever known me to have a client
at my house?”

“
You tell me.”

I had not felt a thing, but I knew Gia
somehow tampered with me. “I swear the woman did a mind job on me.
She suggested she come to my house and I agreed without hesitation.
They’re demons, aren’t they.”

“
Demons? They’re not
Gelpha, Tiff.”

My temper matched the color
of my face, red and getting redder. “They kind of look like you
guys and you indicated they could hear me when we were way over in
your kitchen - it’s a demon thing - and anyway, there’s something
off kilter with them. The way I just agreed to her coming to my
house. . . . Are they another
kind
of demon?”

“
Tiff, you know how we
influence humans.”

I surely did. Demons can arouse you to
the point you’ll do anything they say. Gia Sabato didn’t do that,
but still, I knew she somehow influenced me.

“
No comment on my
assumption they have supernatural hearing?”

“
Pointed teeth and
glittering eyes, Tiff. See any?”

“
And we both know your
people can hide that, even from me, if they make the
effort.”

Sudden thought: “Royal, why were you
so nervous around them? Are they dangerous?”

He turned away from me and faced the
windows. The man actually turned his back on me! “Let it go,
Tiff.”

I couldn’t let it go. “Royal, now is
the time to tell me what’s going on.”

When he kept staring out the window, I
knew I had to get out of there before I said something I’d
regret.

I moved toward the stairs. “Tiff,”
Royal called out. I half turned to face him.

His mouth worked as if he
couldn’t get out the words he wanted to say. Then his shoulders
slumped. “Tiff, I can’t tell you.” His eyes looked desperately into
mine. “Please understand - I just
can’t.
”

I walked out of the
apartment.

Chapt
er Five

I was still steamed as I
drove along Felldale Avenue in my navy-blue Subaru Forrester.
“
Let it go, Tiff.”
I mimicked.

I don’t as a habit speed in
a residential area and when I checked my rearview mirror, sure
enough, a cop car followed two cars back.
You just try ticketing me for going five miles over the
limit,
I seethed.
Just you dare.
Which proved my mood
was not only foul, it was stupid. I eased up on the gas
pedal.

More than anything else, I hurt. Royal
and I had grown so close. I thought we had. We were always
absolutely honest with each other, weren’t we? But he shut me out,
and not only on a personal level, this was an
investigation.

I pressed my lips together
and blew air through my nose. My imagination went into overdrive as
I considered that everything about this new case seemed
coincidentally too tidy. The absent boyfriend grew up in Clarion
and disappeared here. Royal and I just happen to live and work
here. Our new clients seemed to have at least one demon attribute,
and we had pissed off a
lot
of demons.