Dead Demon Walking (31 page)

Creamer dripped between my fingers,
plastic dug in my skin. I’d crushed the containers.

Royal?

A blizzard of frosty particles blew
through me, a chill which enveloped me from scalp to toes. I stood
there, frigid on the inside, while heat from Royal’s building tried
to warm my icy skin. I would never feel warm again.

I wanted to curl up on the
sidewalk and go to sleep. And as I slept all the stages of grieving
would pass. When I woke I would not blame myself for letting Royal
die, I would not blame him for leaving me, I would not go through
an endless list of
why didn’t I do
and
why didn’t I
say.
When I saw him in my mind’s eye it
would be his smiling face and the laughter in his glinting demon
eyes. I would no longer picture a charred body in a burning
building.

A hand fell on my right shoulder and
lightly squeezed. “Okay?”

My knees started to buckle, but
another hand clamped on my other shoulder to hold me erect.
“Tiff!”

My heart stopped beating,
surged.

It takes more power than I possess to
bring a demon down, yet Royal’s backside hit the sidewalk seconds
later and I thought I’d broke my fist.

Tears streaked my face. “You bastard.
You dirty, rotten, lousy, no-good son of a bitch.”

His white teeth dazzled
from his blackened face as he cupped his jaw. “You
do
love me.”

I glared. You have every right to
glare when you go through hell unnecessarily. When your world comes
apart and you experience every emotion known to humanity, you can’t
help but glare at the nearest animate object, which happened to be
Royal. I know, not his fault, but he was handy.

Two paramedics with a gurney between
them arrived as Royal lurched to his feet. “Sir, I need to check
you over,” one said as she reached him.

Hel dusted himself down. “I’m fine.
Just a bit charred at the edges.”

But he looked odd to me, with face,
hands, jacket and pants stained, his hair dull and black. He shook
his head and a sooty cloud puffed in the night air, letting a
little copper and gold glint through. He took off his jacket and
let it fall.

My knuckles hurt. I felt limp,
disoriented. Bereft one moment, furious the next, now my emotions
flat-lined. I didn’t know what to feel.

Royal gently cupped my cheek before
his arms pulled me to his chest. He pushed his fingers through my
hair. “It’s okay, Tiff. We’re okay.”

I lay against him. “Tiff, sweetheart,
say something,” he whispered.

It was too much. My mouth crumpled.
Tears all but spurted from my eyes. I clung to his lapels, shaking
with huge, heaving, gulping sobs. He crushed me to him so
forcefully it hurt. I didn’t care; I wanted to be closer, I wanted
to burrow into him. I wanted our flesh to meld.

Minutes passed. The pounding of my
mangled heart calmed, warmth crept back to my body. Royal’s cheek
rested on mine and our hair mingled in a fall of silver,
sooty-black, copper and gold. Encircled by the noise of shouting
voices and pounding water, air thick with smoke, broken glass
beneath my feet, I was exactly where I wanted to be.

Royal tensed. “Someone bombed my
apartment. Tiff, your house. . . .”

***

The sun hung overhead as Royal and I
stood down the street from my house. The Bomb Squad wouldn’t let us
nearer. The entire street had been evacuated and my neighbors
spluttered like a gang of moths hitting a sixty-watt bulb. Mike
Warren stood with us - not that he had jurisdiction, the FBI took
it from him. Alert, Agent Larsen stood just beyond the barricade,
probably ready to dive for cover should my house blow
up.

Strangest thing, my house didn’t seem
critically important now. You can rebuild a house and Royal had
come back from the dead. I felt an entirely inappropriate glow. I
felt . . . jolly.

Royal looked much better. The cop who
drove us here gave us some wipes to use on our faces and hands. I
think I looked worse, with sooty handprints all over my back and
dark smudges on my hair.

Old Mildred Farmer tugged at my
sleeve. “I don’t understand, dear.”

“
I’m sure it’s nothing to
worry about, Mrs. Farmer,” Royal soothed, laying his hand over
hers.

His other hand held mine; he hadn’t
let go since we got out the police cruiser.

The scowl smoothed from her face. “If
you say so,” she said, blushing, slightly breathless. She placed
her hand over Royal’s. Her voice hushed. “I’m so glad you’re here,
a real man, one a woman can rely on. And so handsome. I -
”

“
Mildred!” George Farmer
exclaimed as if shocked.

Royal freed his hand. Mildred lost her
blush. “My goodness! Did I really say - ?” She closed her mouth in
a little wrinkle, eyeing her husband with a distinctly guilty
expression.

George took her by the upper arm, gave
Royal an accusing look and towed his wife away.

“
She was upset,” Royal said
defensively.

He did that to a volunteer
at Clarion General Hospital when we asked about Rio Borrego. She
had orders not to speak about him, but a touch of Royal’s hand
changed her mind.
I made her
relax
, he told me. Yeah, to the extent she
couldn’t stop herself saying what ran through her mind. He had to
persuade me he didn’t hex her, Gelpha style, before I forgave
him.

He didn’t mean any harm. He acted
instinctively to comfort Mildred.

I put my free hand over my mouth to
hide a grin. “Poor Mildred! And poor old George. What must he
think?”

I concentrated on my home, the tiled
roof I saw over the brow of the hill. Jack. Mel. They must be
frantic, with those men in space suits going through the
house.

Mac wound his leash around my ankles.
He didn’t understand why we stood in a street of milling people
instead of taking our walk. Office Barron, who brought Mac out to
me, thought I’d lost my mind when I threw my arms around his neck
and hugged him.

I felt hopeful. My house hadn’t blown
up and I had not heard the muffled boom of a contained explosion
either.

After standing outside all
night, many in nightclothes, my neighbors were unhappy. They could
have gone elsewhere, were told they
should
go elsewhere, so had only
themselves to blame. I felt hostile looks and caught some from the
corner of my eyes. Hell, it wasn’t my fault! I didn’t invite
assassins to my home.

I looked around again. With Royal’s
apartment bombed, my home threatened and our recent involvement
with the FBI, I expected Vanderkamp and Gunn to turn up. They must.
. . .

Ice slid up my
spine.
I will deal with the
agents.

I again thought back to the day Royal
and I went to see Rio Borrego at Clarion General Hospital and were
told he left under his own steam, with Gia. I mulled over the
complexity of her healing Rio there, in his hospital room, with no
interference from staff. Of walking him out unimpeded. Of ensuring
no word of what happened was circulated.

I could see her doing that.
It was possible. But use her mojo on the Federal Bureau of
Investigation? She would have to go deep, every level of
authority,
and
tamper with the dreaded FBI databases to ensure nobody ever
happened upon a thread which could pique their
curiosity.

I gave myself an imaginary
kick in the butt -
don’t be an idiot,
Tiff. Even Cousins can’t do all that
.

I hoped to God they
couldn’t.

Larsen suddenly went into action. He
unpegged the yellow tape from one side of the street and let it
drop. Four officers walked a path through the crowd, telling us to
move off the road. I held my breath.

Two armored vehicles came through
first, followed by paramedics, ambulance and fire truck. The cops
tried shooing residents back to their homes.

Agent Larsen smiled as he came to us.
“You can go on up.”

My eyes flicked to the house and back
to Larsen. “You’re sure it’s safe?”

“
One-hundred-percent, attic
to basement.”

He held my gaze. I tensed. I don’t
know what magical instruments the FBI use, and I have bodies in my
basement. Literally.

Matt Larsen is five-seven so I tower
over him, but I’m sure that doesn’t bother him. I doubt he notices
any disparity in height, with any person. He has buzz-cut
light-brown hair, swarthy, pockmarked olive skin, a narrow,
thin-lipped mouth, a nose like a knife blade and bushy eyebrows
darker than his hair. He has a way of staring at you with intensity
in his dark-blue eyes, but his facial muscles relaxed. His look
makes me wonder if he knows all my secrets. He doesn’t; he just
likes to unnerve me. When he gives me his penetrating stare, I
smile into his face.

I smiled. “I’m relieved to hear
it.”

“
They managed to disconnect
the detonator from the explosives,” he went on. “Are you
coming?”

We followed him up the hill with my
neighbors’ curious eyes on us. Three plain cars and two squad cars
were parked outside. One unit, with its wheels on my sorry excuse
for a front yard, had squashed my solitary rose bush. I expected to
see Jack and Mel’s anxious faces at the window, but they must be
elsewhere in the house.

“
A simple device wired to a
kitchen outlet. The first time you plug in an appliance - boom!”
Larsen said, making me feel
so
much better.

Mike Warren stood at the garage. He
beckoned me over.

“
Well?” I asked.

“
Well?” Royal
echoed.

Mike took off his hat and dusted the
speckless brim with one hand. “Not much to go on, Tiff. We found a
partial footprint out back and mud in your kitchen.” He shrugged
wide shoulders.

The forensics gang came out the front
door with hard-sided black bags in hand. I nodded in their
direction. “Did they find anything, apart from the bomb and
footprint?”

“
They’ve taken samples. You
know the procedure.”

“
Can I go inside
now?”

Mike barely got out a “yes” before I
had the front door open.

The door to the basement stood ajar. I
walked through the hall to the kitchen, into a whirlwind. Jack
zipped around the perimeter in a blur of motion. Mel sped back and
forth in a straight line between backdoor and west windows. I
watched with my mouth open - they didn’t stop. They moved so fast,
I barely made them out. They were in full panic mode.

Yellow markers like those I saw in the
Welsh’s house sat on the countertop next the stove, in the open
cabinet above it, another at the backdoor beside what could be a
smear of mud.

Mike and Larsen squeezed in the
doorway either side of me, Royal behind them. As I observed my
roommates’ awesome display of alarm, I heard Larsen and Royal talk
about the explosion at Royal’s apartment. Same method, doubtless
the same perpetrators. Someone was out to get us. Hence the
Bureau’s involvement – this fell under the Homeland Security
Act.

Jack and Mel noticed me and stopped at
the same time. I could virtually hear the brakes screech. Then they
were on me. I couldn’t speak to them so steeled myself to ignore
their yammering, but wonder upon wonder, my spectral buddies said
not a thing. Eying the cops, they backed off and went to stand near
the kitchen windows.

Larsen went to the stove. He indicated
the cupboard above. “It was in back of here.”

I keep casserole dishes and roasting
pans I rarely use up there. The investigators had moved them aside
to reveal where a square piece had been cut out of the cupboard’s
back wall. The section lay on the counter. It would leave only a
thin seam when replaced, and even had I looked in there I would not
have noticed with the pans and dishes covering it.

“
We’ve seen this before,
and the same setup used in Mortensen’s apartment.” Larsen pointed
to the hole, then directed my attention to the outlet next the
stove. He held the missing outlet cover. “They put the explosive
behind the cupboard and ran a wire through the wall to your outlet,
connected it to a small pressure plate. You plug in an appliance,
the prongs hit the plate. . . .”

“
I know.
Boom
.”

“
Simple but effective,”
Mike said.

I beetled my brows. “You don’t have to
sound so admiring.”

“
These guys were amateurs,”
Larsen said. “The device in Mortensen’s apartment should have blown
when he plugged in the coffeemaker - ”

Royal interrupted. “I did notice the
plug was not properly seated in the outlet. I thought I must have
jogged it loose when I cleaned the counter.”

“
But it didn’t,” Larsen
continued. “He was well away when it detonated.”

“
I went to the door to see
where Tiff got to with that creamer.”