Demon Hunt (24 page)

“
There’s no greater treasure than a man who’ll get up to make coffee.” Rhi took the cup with a grin.

She had spent the night entangled in his arms among the down comforters and pillows of her bed. His presence excluded anything resembling sleep for Rhi other than a nap here and there throughout the night. She was going to need to sleep for a week if she got out of this alive.

“
He’ll not expect us to go out,” Blackthorne told her. “It should appear that you’re doing your own thing - going to the funeral and socializing afterwards. He’s expecting me to put you in a hole somewhere, instead of you going off to eat finger sandwiches.”

He referred to the luncheon in Marie Collier’s honor at the
Saint Nicholas Hotel
scheduled for later in the afternoon
.
Blackthorne seemed uneasy at the mention of the hotel when Rhi told him of her plans for the day, his countenance glazing over for a moment and then shaking it off. Rhi pretended not to notice the obvious spasm of memory, telling herself that it was probably a feeling she would have many times around him.

He ran a hand over her bare leg. “I’ll meet you at the hotel; I’ve got messages to send and equipment to move here.”

Curled up on the bed dressed in a t-shirt and clutching her steaming coffee, Rhi wondered if she should tell her protector he assumed an awful lot with the presumption that he was staying in her home.

Who was she kidding? A guardian, and a hot one at that, was a blessing Pam Douglas would beat Rhi soundly for turning down in any form.

“
I think Pam’s hoping for Rocky Mountain Oysters today. They’re her favorite.” She referred to the doubtful delicacy of battered and deep fried cattle gonads eaten only by those hardy souls in the mountains who possessed a stomach like a ranch hand.

“
You’ve got to admire a woman who enjoys her balls.” He wiggled his dark eyebrows. “Do you enjoy sampling them as well?”

“
Cocky.”

Blackthorne shook his head and sprawled onto the bed. “You were a bit of a spitfire a hundred years ago, but underneath you were still a prim Victorian girl. A hundred years can do strange things to the female psyche.”

His words reminded her of what she might face in the coming hours. “I have no idea what to do with the skull once I get my hands on it … I don’t know
how
to destroy the gate. Let alone when.”

“
The ‘when’ is the day after tomorrow, the 10,000-year anniversary of the building of this particular gate, according to the oracle. And the skull will turn up like a bad penny, today or tomorrow and hit one of us in the head. The skull will be here on time.”

It’s
already
here,
she thought, instinctively shielding her thoughts from him.
Hey! I shielded my thoughts – now if I could remember how to shoot lightning bolts out of my hands, we’d be cooking with fire.
Can
I shoot lighting bolts out of my hands?

“
Great,” she said aloud in a disgusted tone. “A deadline. Do you realize the day after tomorrow is the opening day of Winterfest? This town’ll be full of people.” Rhi rolled her eyes. “And my head doesn’t need anything else hitting it, thank you. The imaginary hammer whacking away inside my noggin this morning is more than enough. By the way, don’t you need to -
snack
this morning? Do you need a cup of my aura?”

“
The after-effects of a feeding are like having the flu - I won’t drain you. I’ll find a ‘snack’ later this morning.”

She could not hide the flash of revulsion on her face.

He grimaced and glanced away for a moment. “Are we so terrible? We try to give back to those we drain - taking away bad memories and pains or leaving behind a mental suggestion that sticks.”

“
A suggestion? Like
go on a diet, porker
?”

He turned back to her and grinned. “Yes - I’m better than diet pills any day. Pearl likes to drain unhappily married women and tell them to leave the bastards. And since she thinks all men are bastards, the divorce rate goes through the roof everywhere she goes. She tells them to turn their lives around before it’s too late, go back to school or some such nonsense.”

“
I have quite a bit of empathy with Pearl some days,” Rhi replied. Her voice got smaller. “Does it hurt – being, uh, fed on?”

“
No – it’s actually a bit pleasurable. Even when being bitten by one like my brother, who has embraced the demon blood wholly, the glamour of the one who feeds makes it feel like …” he paused, obviously remembering Rhi had been the victim in another life of such a bloodletting.

She sat up. “Like sex? So - how often has Pearl gotten to
drain
you in the last 100 years?”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re jealous.”

“
Don’t be ridiculous. It would be difficult to be monogamous with a dead woman. And I get the feeling words like
monogamous
and
Pearl
don’t belong in the same sentence.”

“
Now that sounds catty.” He yelped in mock terror when she pulled him down and straddled his chest to crouch threateningly over him. “She only drained me once, I swear. To go through the Change. She
knew you back then, too. I think she lives by some kind of weird code.”

Rhi narrowed her eyes. “Weird is the operative word.” She moved to roll off but he held her fast. “Jack, I have to go to a funeral today. It isn’t polite to be all glowy from rambunctious sex when paying one’s final respects.”

“
That’s okay - Pam wanted to see someone glow, didn’t she?”

* * * *

Pam’s reaction to her appearance was typical when Rhi went to pick up her friend.

“
My God! That must have been some kind of ‘long lost love’ sex! You look awful. I’ve seen better gin hangovers.”

Rhi wearily opened the door of the truck and almost slid to the ground. She clutched the door to steady herself. “Gee, Pam, don’t hold back. Tell me what you really think.”

“
You’re white as a ghost and those circles under your eyes could be used as a stockcar track. As wasted as a … vampire … eek.” Pam began her onslaught at the usual volume but ended with a squeak when the realization of what might be going on with her friend hit her. She cursed, digging in the large purple purse hanging off her bony shoulder.

“
The bastard bit you! I’ll cut his balls off, immortal or not - how fun can immortality be with no nuts? Crap, where’s my gun?”

“
Pam, he didn’t bite me. His kind doesn’t bite, remember? The long lost love sex and margaritas did me in. Plus, there were a few nightmares thrown in for good measure.” Rhi motioned for her friend to get into the vehicle. “I feel like something scraped up by a snowplow and my head hurts. Thus, the scarf and sunglasses. Hope I look European instead of hung over. Where’s Houston?”

Pam went to the passenger side of the blue vehicle and opened the door. “He left here with Melon in tow this morning after a pow-wow on possible weapons of mass destruction.”

Rhi looked at her friend curiously.

Pam sighed. “I found Melon in my barn this morning, hiding in the hay with the cats. Those critters that came at us in the bar last night went partying in the woods after they were done with us. I didn’t ask too much. I don’t think Melon was ready or able to talk about it. But I think whatever happened was bad. Real bad. And how your boyfriend got Houston’s cell number, I don’t know. Aren’t these guys supposed to be psychic or something? What are people going to think? Immortals calling up on the phone – it’s unnatural!”

“
Weapons might come in handy. I feel my spider senses tingling this morning.”

Pam gaped at her pale friend. “Tingling? That must have been some kind of whoopee you made last night, girlfriend. Wait, what
about
whoopee? Screw getting bitten, you had testosterone man at your house last night. Spill!”

“
Pam. I don’t want to speak out of turn but,” Rhi paused for dramatic effect. “It was romance novel sex.”

“
Romance novel sex! With his ‘thews of steel’ and granite abs! I hate you.”

Rhi started the truck and turned down the drive. “What the hell is a ‘thew’?”

“
I can’t believe you got to touch that butt.”

“
That butt is over 500 years old,” she replied as she scanned the woods for the inevitable shadows.

“
All I can say is … like a fine wine, it’s gotten better with age.” Pam gave her friend a lecherous grin.

Rhi sighed. It was going to be a long day.

* * * *

The Mount Pisgah graveyard was a desolate place, in spite having so many permanent residents. Gravestones of the gold rush dead littered the hillside where Rhi, Pam, and the rest of Marie’s funeral procession stood in silent contemplation. Only a few garish mausoleums and skeletal trees broke the monotony of that side of the cemetery.

Looks like everywhere else in this town,
Rhi noted.
Frozen.
She tucked her gloved but still freezing hands into her pockets, listening to the graveside service. Then she felt a jolt at the sight of a solitary figure standing in another section of the graveyard, swathed in an archaic cloak and ebony veils. She caught Pam’s eye and lifted an eyebrow. “If we wanted to get noticed today, the veiled woman in the graveyard should do the trick. Funny, I don’t think her type to wears many clothes - if you get my drift.”

Pam turned. “Yep. And she’s standing beside her own tombstone - that’s a bit creepy. She’s probably the one who kept flowers on the grave for a hundred years.”

The standing order local florists had to keep the grave adorned with fresh displays of red silk roses was well known. The arrangement had been taken care of by several different businesses since the madam’s death over a hundred years before. The baffling part was that the order was anonymous and seemingly eternal. Payments were made by one of the oldest and most prestigious banks in Denver.

The madam stood beside her equally famous heart-shaped marble headstone. The wind lifted her black veils into octopus-like tendrils to float in the sky behind her. Two perfect silk strands of auburn hair escaped to mingle with the veils. Several items were scattered over the grave: a huge arrangement of red roses, an unopened bottle of champagne, two handmade dolls made up to resemble Pearl in her heyday, and a few letters were stuck in the wooden box provided by the city for missives written in her honor. Fans still visited Pearl and left mementoes, even though she had been presumed dead for a more than a hundred years from an overdose of laudanum at thirty-three.

Rhi, in her headscarf and sunglasses, realized that she probably looked like a child wrapped in her mother’s sheets on Halloween compared to Pearl. She wondered how the woman had figured out how to position herself and loosen her scarves for the mystical windblown effect.
Witch.

“
I don’t know if she has done it or not, but I can see a man being obsessed enough with her to send flowers forever.” Then a horrific idea hit Rhi and she focused on some of the smaller, untended headstones and scattered crypts surrounding the grave of Pearl De Vere. “Dear God, do you realize who else could be buried here - in
this
cemetery?”

The taller woman grimaced and glanced at Rhi suspiciously. Her jaw hung loose for a moment and then firmed up with typical stubbornness. “Rhi - don’t ask Pearl where you’re buried. You’ve got enough to freak yourself out with? From the few joyous moments I’ve shared with her, she’d probably take a perverse delight in showing you how much smaller your tombstone is than hers. Let it go.”

Rhi nodded to acknowledge the wisdom of her friend’s words. The women turned to follow the rest of the funeral procession towards the parked cars, leaving the hillside and its newest resident in her ebony coffin, waiting for the handlers to add her to the crowded ranks of the dead. Rhi’s SUV was parked on the side of a berm near the gravel road. The other mourners reached their cars and were filing out beneath the wrought iron cemetery gate.

While they descended, the cloaked figure of Pearl approached as they descended. The madam’s strides were much longer than Rhi would have expected out of such a refined figure.

Pearl pulled back her veil with a flourish to reveal her delicate features.

“
I’m here to baby-sit you two and stroll the paths of the Mt Pisgah Cemetery to admire the scenery, wildlife and my own damned tombstone. Any dragons yet?”

Pam examined the woman’s ensemble, revealed by the dramatic unveiling. “Not yet but you’re the first in line to fight the darned thing in
that
getup. Hemingway couldn’t have dressed you for battle any better. You’re lucky you don’t wear a sword like Jack does, though, it would ruin the line of your outfit.”