Blood of the Demon

Chapter 23

My stomach was doing queasy flip-flops as I pulled into my aunt’s driveway, a combination of shock and no food other than my morning coffee. And, since I took my coffee thick and sweet, I now faced a serious comedown off the caffeine and sugar high.

A headache indicated that it wanted to take up residence behind my eyes, and I squinted against the noonday sun as I walked up the stairs to the porch. I heard a low rumble from the west and I glanced up, seeing the dark mass of clouds on the horizon that promised afternoon thunderstorms. About time. The harsh weather could be a shock to people who weren’t from this area, but the near-daily thunderstorms were about the only thing that made the summers bearable. The temperature would drop about ten degrees, and even though the humidity would climb up into the sodden figures, it was still better than the relentless heat. And I could handle the humidity just fine. I’d dry up and flake away in a desert climate.

Another low rumble accompanied me as I unwound the aversion on the door. As if answering the thunder, my impending headache gave a warning throb as I slid my key into the lock. Painkillers, I thought. And food. I heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, and I glanced back to verify that it was Ryan. It was. And, even better, I saw that he had bags in his hand—the kind of bags that fast-food establishments packaged their wares in.

Finally, something was going right with my day.

I turned the key and stopped dead, hand still holding the key as my heart did a little jump. The door had already been unlocked. I released the breath I was holding and let go of the key, backing away from the door and pulling my gun from my holster. How much noise had I made coming up the stairs? I could hear movement within. As I slid to the side to get better cover, I could see a figure moving around, but it was impossible to see who—or what—it was through the sheer curtains. But the ward had still been up, I thought. I knew that much.

I turned to signal to Ryan but discovered that I didn’t need to. He was sharp and must have seen me back away from the door. The bags of food had been abandoned on the hood of his car, and he stood at the base of the steps, his own gun drawn.

“Someone’s in there,” I mouthed silently. He gave me a small nod in response, waiting for me to take the lead.

With the door unlocked, it was an easy entry. I pushed the door open with one hand, quickly moving to avoid being framed in the doorway. “Beaulac Police,” I shouted, covering the hallway and entry to the kitchen with my Glock. “Come out where I can see you!” In my peripheral vision I could see Ryan entering smoothly and shifting to a position where he could cover the areas I couldn’t.

“Oh, shit!” I heard a male voice from the kitchen. “Kara, it’s just me.”

I couldn’t place the voice, though it was familiar. “Come out where I can see you, and keep your hands in plain sight!”

I don’t think I could have possibly been more surprised if the pope had exited the kitchen. Instead, it was Carl, Dr. Lanza’s gangly morgue tech, stepping cautiously through the doorway, his eyes wide and his hands raised. “Kara, it’s just me.”

I struggled for words for a couple of seconds as I tried to process why the fuck the morgue tech would be here. Could he be the one who’s been screwing around with the wards? If he was a summoner, I’d eat my left shoe. “What are you doing here?” I finally managed to ask, not yet lowering my gun.

“I’ve been keeping an eye on the place ever since Tess has been in the hospital.”

A piece of the puzzle clicked into place. “You’ve been mowing the lawn?” And Carl was tall, thin, with light-hazel eyes. Melanie-the-dingbat’s description hadn’t been far from the truth after all.

He smiled faintly. “Yes, and doing the edging, and weeding her gardens. And I fixed a busted window, and her roses needed some pruning too, so I—”

“Why?” Ryan interrupted, voice sounding oddly harsh in the hallway. “Why do you give a shit about Tessa’s roses?”

Carl blinked. “Well, she’s my girlfriend,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. His eyes flicked from Ryan and then to me. “You didn’t know?”

“No!” The word came out somewhat strangled. I holstered my gun and roughly shoved my hand through my hair. “No, she never saw fit to inform me that she had a … social life.” Not that it was all that shocking … Okay, it was all that shocking. This was Tessa. Weird, strange, quirky Tessa, who summoned demons in her house. I frowned. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but my aunt is kinda … strange. And has some, er, secrets.” Gah. This was starting to sound like she was some sort of spy. An insane one.

Carl lowered his hands, a small smile curving his mouth. “I know. She summons”—his gaze flicked quickly to Ryan, and I could see Carl censor himself—“strange creatures,” he finished instead of what he was obviously going to say.

“Demons,” Ryan growled.

Carl nodded once. “Yes, she’s a summoner of demons.”

I took a careful breath. I really didn’t want to eat my left shoe. “Are you?”

“No. I just like her. A lot.”

Ryan had holstered his gun as well and regarded Carl with a frown. “It’s easy to say you’re someone’s boyfriend if they’re not here to support the story.”

Carl inclined his head in understanding. “Yes, I know what you’re saying.” He thought for a few seconds, then looked at me. “She told me that when you were fourteen, you had to be taken to the hospital for a drug overdose.”

I flushed hotly. Trust Tessa to share that bit of wonder-fulness. My teen years—before I began training to be a summoner—had been an unpleasant foray into drugs, rebellion, and general acting-out. If not for the summoning and the focus that helped me get my life back on track, I’d probably be dead by now. “All right, you two know each other pretty well, I guess.” Then I frowned. “So you’re not a summoner, but you must know how to shape wards. I had to take them down to come in.”

He shook his head. “Actually, they don’t affect me.”

“’Scuse me?”

He shrugged. “I don’t really know why or how. Honestly, I know that there are wards only because Tessa showed me their effect on others. But they don’t affect me. I can walk right through them.”

“That’s … interesting,” I said, unable to put anything more coherent into words. But at least some things were starting to make sense. “You’ve been visiting my aunt at the neuro center?”

“Yes. I don’t know if it helps, but it makes me feel better. Look, if you’re convinced that I’m not robbing the place, I really need to get going. I’m on call today.”

“Um, sure.” Tessa has a boyfriend. It would take some time for me to wrap my mind around that one. “Thanks for taking care of the lawn.”

He inclined his head slightly, then gave more of a nod to Ryan. “I’ll be seeing you around, then.” And with that he slipped out the door. I watched him as he walked off down the street.

“He must live in the area?” Ryan said as much as asked.

“I’ll check,” I said, grimacing. “I’ll check it all out. But I need to eat first.”

“I’ll go get your gourmet repast,” Ryan said.

“I’m going to look through the rest of the house.” I believed Carl, which was odd, considering how shocked I’d been to hear that he and Tessa were an item, but it was the kind of thing that was utterly believable even if I never would have thought of it on my own. Still, I felt a fairly compulsive need to search and secure the house and the library. I could believe they were dating, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t also out to find something. Like an open portal that my darling aunt failed to tell me about.

I sighed and scrubbed at my face as I entered the library and flicked on the lights. Tessa could be erratic, impulsive, and even annoying at times, but I could never say that she didn’t always have my best interests at heart. Plus, she’s mine, I thought fiercely.

I quickly examined the wards in the library, especially the ones over and around the portal, finding nothing amiss. But would I even know? It was shameful, really, that my skills were so weak. I clearly had the ability and the affinity to handle and see the wards. And the more I came to know about my aunt and the wardings in her house, the more my suspicion grew that Tessa’s ability to ward was also minimal at best. She had enough skill to shape the protections needed for summonings, but beyond that it looked as if she’d relied on others to do the work for her.

I squared my shoulders and returned to the kitchen, replacing the wards as I left the library. Ryan came in and sat on a stool on the opposite side of the counter from me, setting two bags from Taco House and a pad of paper in front of him.

“Let’s start figuring out what we know,” he said as he pulled about a dozen wrapped tacos out of the bag.

“Okay. We’ll just list everything to start,” I said. “Carol and Brian Roth are dead. Davis Sharp is dead. Brian and Sharp both had their essence eaten. A demon dog-thing attacked us. And the Galloways had their essence ripped away and are dead.”

He nodded, jotting quick notes in a crabbed script. “And your aunt has an open portal in her library, and you were attacked by a—a psycho pixie-thing.”

I unwrapped a taco, dribbling cheese onto the black granite of the countertop. “The big question I have is whether there’s really a connection between any of this shit.”

“I’m not finished,” Ryan said, still writing. “We should include the fact that I’m investigating Judge Harris Roth for misconduct.”

I’d just taken a bite of taco, and I was forced to actually continue to chew and then swallow instead of staring at him openmouthed. “He’s the one you’re investigating? ’Splain, please?”

He wiped a strand of lettuce off his chin with the back of his hand. “Witness intimidation, improper disposition of drug seizure property, possible planting of drug evidence, not pursuing cases against major supporters. That sort of thing.”

I felt a little mental click as a couple of pieces fit together. “The Galloways?”

“Exactly. After their restaurant was seized, it was auctioned. To Davis Sharp.”

The damn lightbulb finally went off over my head. “Ohhhhh. That’s Sharp’s restaurant now!”

Ryan gave me a thin smile. “Correct. And Sharp bought it for a song. The judge who presided over the seizure and the plea deal concerning the son was …” He looked at me expectantly.

“Judge Roth,” I breathed. “Who also happened to receive horking big campaign contributions from Davis Sharp, and had for the last ten years or so. Whoa. So he’s dirty?”

“It appears so. We think that the entire drug bust and seizure was a frame-up, just so Davis Sharp could get his hands on that property.” He sighed and scrubbed at his eyes. “We’d been working with the Galloways for several months now—trying to build a corruption case against the not-so-honorable Judge Roth. Unfortunately, they weren’t as cooperative as we’d hoped.”

“Why not? I would think that they’d want to see Roth taken down.”

His face twisted in annoyance and frustration. “They did. But they also wanted significant financial restitution, and fairly soon. Sam was pretty ill, and the medical bills were crushing them. They weren’t happy when we had to tell them that there was no guarantee that restitution would happen and, even if it did, it might take years. That sort of thing is completely out of our control.”

I groaned. “So they resorted to blackmail.”

His expression darkened. “That’s our best guess.”

I looked at him for several heartbeats. “Whoever killed them is also our essence-eater. But you’re not convinced that it was Roth who pulled the trigger, are you?”

He shook his head. “Judge Roth isn’t the only one who stood to lose if the corruption was exposed and not the only one in a position to be blackmailed. People who worked with him, campaign contributors, business associates … If we can ever get a break on this case, it’s going to be a pretty massive shitstorm.”

“Welcome to Louisiana politics,” I muttered.

“It’s a fucking spectator sport down here, isn’t it?” Ryan took another bite of taco. “All right, let’s keep going with the brainstorming. We also have the fact that Elena Sharp pressed charges twice against her husband for domestic violence and dropped them twice.”

I had to grimace. That one I knew about. “Unfortunately, that’s not all that uncommon. I can’t count the number of times I’ve done the paperwork to put some jerk-off in jail, only to have the wife or girlfriend—or boyfriend—come down and bail said jerk-off out.”

His mouth twisted. “All the time professing their undying love, right?”

“Something like that.”

“Did Elena Sharp strike you as that type?”

“Not really. I mean, not the undying love part, at least. Unless it was undying love of the lifestyle that she didn’t want to give up.” I rolled my eyes. “To add to the fun, there’s a rumor floating around that she was having an affair of her own—with our dear Judge Roth—and that Davis Sharp threw her out.” I gave a shrug. “But my source was a Cardio Barbie in the locker room at the gym, so who knows how reliable the information was.”

“Would that explain why she filed for divorce?” Ryan pointed out.

“I don’t think so. She enjoyed being married to money. Why would she leave that to be Roth’s mistress? She was afraid of something … or someone—so much so that she was willing to leave her comfy lifestyle.”

“Maybe Davis wanted the divorce and had someone pressure her.”

“Possible. Let’s write it all down.”

“I am, I am.” He set the pen down after a moment and pushed the pad to me. “So. Connected?”

I looked down, then looked up. “I have no fucking idea. I can’t read your writing.”

He let out a snort. “Well, you’ve got three of the Roths connected.”

“Carol and Brian, supposed murder—suicide—though I’m still not buying that scenario,” I said, renewed annoyance flaring that I didn’t have those cases anymore. I had very little faith that Pellini would push to find out who really killed them. “Brian’s the son of the judge who is being investigated by the FBI for misconduct, and one of his main supporters, Davis Sharp, was found ass end up in the shower. Sharp happened to buy a piece of drug-seizure property for a song—property that was seized from the Galloways, who are also dead because they apparently tried to blackmail someone involved in the whole thing.” I frowned down at the piece of paper. “So Harris Roth is connected to all of them, but why would he kill Carol and Brian? Or Davis Sharp? Even if he was boffing Elena, would that be worth murdering Sharp? I could possibly see him killing the Galloways if he was trying to cover shit up. But the others? And if it’s him, how is he consuming essences? Or does he have something else doing it for him? And did he get that dog-thing to attack us?”

Ryan pulled the pad back to him. “Yeah, we’re still missing a few pieces.”

“A few?”

His mouth twitched in a smile. “Okay, a lot.” He unwrapped another taco and started in on it. “Have you been able to find out anything about what could suck down essences like that?”

I shook my head, feeling another surge of annoyance that I’d screwed up my freebie questions from Rhyzkahl. “Still working on that. I’ll be spending my free time in that damn library. And whoever it is, they’re getting stronger, or at least better at it. Sam and Sara weren’t already dead or dying when the killer pulled their essence out.”

Ryan picked up spilled meat and cheese and stuffed it back into the taco. “Yeah, that’s not encouraging news.”

“More research for me,” I said with a sigh.

“Well, be careful of that portal-thing.”

I looked at the pile of empty wrappers in front of him. I’d eaten three, and it looked like Ryan had torn through almost the rest of the dozen in the few minutes we’d been talking. “Good grief, Ryan,” I said with a laugh. “Hungry?”

He grinned. “I’m storing up my strength, in case all of this turns out to be anywhere near as nasty as the last case I worked on with you.”

“Ugh, don’t even say that! I don’t feel like dying again.”

“Yeah, I’d probably have to pay for the funeral myself this time.”

I laughed. “Take up a collection! All of my adoring fans.”

“And your ex-boyfriends. And all of the coworkers you’ve been accused of sleeping with.” He grinned. “Come on, I know you have the hots for Pellini and Boudreaux.”

“I just ate. Don’t do that to me.”

He laughed. “I’m sure you have plenty of adoring ex-lovers. I’d have to hire security to keep them from throwing themselves onto the coffin in grief.”

“Sad to say, I doubt you’ll have to chase too many away,” I replied with a mock sigh. “It’s been far too long since I’ve had sex with a human.”

The words were out of my mouth before I fully realized what I’d said. I fought to keep the teasing smile on my face, praying desperately that Ryan wouldn’t understand the meaning beneath the words.

He slowly set the unfinished taco down and wiped his hands off, face going very still. I could see the thoughts ticking behind his eyes, putting together various comments and clues. Sweat stung my armpits, and a sick misery began to coil in my chest. No, no, no. He’s going to freak out.

“A human?” he said, green-gold eyes lifting to mine, voice unbearably even.

I started to babble out a denial, some sort of retraction, but I knew it would sound lame and pathetic. Screw it. I was in this far. And what fucking business was it of his anyway? “The first time I encountered Rhyzkahl, I … uh …” Okay, maybe not so easy to say outright. At least not to Ryan.

His expression froze, his eyes going dark with either pain or fury. I couldn’t tell. When he spoke his voice was so cold I thought it would crack. “You slept with him?”

I felt as if someone had dumped ice down my back. I’d been worried that he might have a guy-jealousy type of reaction, but this was something far more intense, as if he suddenly despised me. Stop it, I railed at myself. Stop caring so much what he thinks. It wasn’t working. I couldn’t help it. I did care. I couldn’t bear the thought of him not liking me or respecting me anymore. “It’s not how you think.” I was trying to be calm, cool. I wasn’t being very successful. “I mean, it’s not like I summoned him and then immediately jumped his bones. I was scared to death at first. I thought he was going to destroy me!”

I swear he bared his teeth. “He raped you?”

“Holy shit! No. No, it was … it was totally consensual. No coercion or anything.”

His face was like stone. “I don’t get it. I don’t get why you would have sex with a creature like that. I figured you for someone who had more self-respect than that.”

I felt as if my breath had been robbed from me, and for several gaping seconds I could only struggle to regain the power of speech. “Self-respect?” I finally managed. “Who the fuck are you to be all self-righteous about this?”

“I just can’t believe you fucked that thing!” he retorted, voice rough with what I could only assume was utter disdain. “Why … why would you do that?”

I stared at him, trying to control my anger and hurt and my ripping disappointment in him. I’d never imagined that he could be this judgmental, and I had the sick suspicion he was seeing me as someone who was so weak and needy that I had to find comfort from a demon lover.

“Because I’m lonely!” I exploded, standing and nearly tipping the stool over. “Because I’ve only ever had two boyfriends, and they were shitty in bed, and they never stayed very long anyway. I had this incredibly gorgeous guy wanting to kiss me and make love to me, and I wanted it. I don’t have many friends. I mean, shit! I know he was just trying to get something from me, but y’know what? I wanted something from him too. I wanted to be touched and wanted and to feel—for a few fucking minutes—that I was sexy and desirable. And to feel—for a few fucking minutes—a way I knew I’d never felt before and would probably never feel again!” I stood there, chest heaving. Shit. Shit. How could I have said all that? How could he judge me like that?

His face twisted in what looked like a snarl, and his knuckles whitened as he balled his hands into fists. He abruptly stood and came around the end of the counter in two quick strides. I backed away in shock as he reached for me, my heart slamming in my chest as I came up against the sink. Was he really so angry that he would strike out at me? I couldn’t believe it, but why else come at me like that?

But he froze as I retreated, his eyes haunted and his hand still extended toward me. I looked at him, wide-eyed, waiting to see what he was going to do.

We stood in that tableau for a breath, then he dropped his hand, suddenly looking tired and defeated. He was silent for several heartbeats, eyes on me as if desperately searching for something. Then he looked away. “I … should probably go now,” he said, voice thick.

I swallowed, then gave a jerky nod. “Yes, I think that’s a good idea.” I managed to keep my voice from shaking, at least.

He turned to go but paused at the kitchen door, hand on the door frame, not looking back at me. “Thank you for helping out at the crime scene,” he said, voice so low and rough I could barely hear him.

He continued out, and I heard the front door open and close. “You’re welcome,” I whispered. Then I gave in and sat on the floor of the kitchen and cried my heart out.