Demon Demon Burning Bright, Whisperings book four

by Linda Welch

  “I’m sure you’re correct.”

  “And what’s between me and Royal is none of your business.”

  A door opened. I pulled my hood up and ducked my head as someone walked past us and on down the stairs.

  “In truth, dreams are inexplicable. I dream of sex all the time.”

  I bet. “That’s supposed to signify … what?” I grumped.

  “However often, I can never get enough. Sometimes, a dream is just a dream.”

  He turned to me. His index finger sculpted my cheek, traced my jaw and stopped its exploration in the soft hollow at the base of my neck where it burned, an ember on my skin. “Sweet Tiff, have pity, assuage my needs.”

  I revolved away so he didn’t see my smile. “You disgust me.”

  “Ah well.” He made a face. “I bid you goodnight then.”

  He crossed to his door and rapped with his knuckles. “Cherise, my love, are you still awake?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Where were you last night? You said you wouldn’t be long.”

  “If I remember correctly, you asked me to take you to Cicero, not protect you.”

  I said the same to Chris, so I couldn’t complain.

  “Does it matter? You seem to be in one piece.”

  “If not for Chris… .”

  “I thought he would be useful.”

  The way she said it made suspicion fritter along my nerves. “Did you know someone would come after me here?”

  She hesitated before saying, “No.”

  One word, yet said with reluctance. I was not reassured. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  She laughed. “Many things, Miss Banks. Many things.”

  Gia’s comb rippled through her long black hair. Cosmetics perfectly enhanced her features. Lacking a reflective surface, I had to guess how I looked. With wisps sprouting from my braid, eyes puffy, lips dry, I felt like a hag.

  “Helmet on,” she said, sounding far too perky for this early in the morning. “We’ll arrive at Burch Mountain before dark if we leave now.”

  In the warm morning air, we left the city by a different road. The black surface stretched ahead for miles, gradually tapered by distance until it merged with the surrounding countryside. We followed a winding river as it moved between dry clay banks, gathering shallow streams to it. The fringe of the mountain range was clearly visible now, green hills and rocky outcrops climbing to bare peaks higher than I had estimated.

  We passed small towns, villages, hamlets, scattered homes, riding through a vast agricultural area. No breeze stirred acre after acre of tall, golden grain. Cattle stood together listlessly.

  We stopped on a high overlook midmorning. Chris produced more paper-wrapped packages, these containing sweet, chewy fruit and grain bars. Gia had more water which she shared with us. I would have killed for an ice-cold diet cola.

  The land dropped away on the other side of the road. Far below, the river carved through a magnificent vista of purple corrugated hills. Tiny yellow wild flowers grew on the verges and the grassy hill which rose at our backs. I smelled their sweet perfume and pictured the colors on my mountain valley in spring. It seemed so far away.

  Chris and I were still nibbling the cereal bars when Gia walked up the hill behind us and over the crest.

  Chris cocked his head. I nodded. Side by side, we traipsed up the hill through long grass and over patches of dirt strewn with tiny pebbles.

  Gia stood with hands loose at her sides. She half turned her head at our approach, but I don’t think she saw us.

  The land before us dipped slightly, then leveled. I drew in a quick, pleased breath. Curvaceous crystalline structures of all shapes and sizes spread over the plain in the distance. Some bulbous, others thin as icicles, they glowed with pearly light. Pyramids, squares, rectangles, globes, soaring towers with flat or pointed roofs. Slender jewel-tone spires of garnet, sapphire, emerald, amber and amethyst rose among the buildings, if that’s what they were. Sparkling strings joined one structure to another; they looked like strands of spider web beaded with dew. I couldn’t take it all in.

  My eyes were filled with beauty. “It’s amazing. Who lives there?”

  “Nobody, now,” she said so softly I barely heard her.

  “It’s … exquisite.”

  Gia turned and the sadness in her eyes pierced me. “It is indeed.”

  “Where did they go? Why would anyone leave such a beautiful place?”

  She lifted her chin. “You ask too many questions. Come. We have a long way to go,” she said curtly.

  She walked away without another glance. Chris followed, I lagged behind, walking backward, until I had to turn or fall down the hill.

  Gia strode down the hill, spine stiff, shoulders squared, head erect. As I watched, her shoulders slumped, she crossed her arms to hug herself and bowed her head.

  I’m going back out to look around.

  Did she come here last night? With the hostel so close, how could she resist?

  I think I saw an abandoned Dark Cousin city.

  We did not climb the slopes but followed their line until we angled into a canyon of bare rock and pockets of gritty soil, the road weaving between stunted trees and low prickly shrubs. The road became half its former width then suddenly was no longer there; only an oft-used trail continued onward.

  The mountain rose over us like an old snaggled tooth. Trees did not cling precariously, mountain growth did not sink roots in grooves and cracks; it was barren and forbidding. We drove for miles until we reached a rift where the canyon’s sides angled up and outward, with huge boulders mounded at the base. The Harley decelerated and stopped next to Gia’s idling bullet bike. The unexpected cessation of motion pushed me against Chris’ back. I sat with my hands on his shoulders. They cut their engines.

  “Well, my Lady, here we are,” he said softly into the still mountain air.

  The Shovelhead tilted on its stand. Chris cocked one leg over and slid off the seat. Gia already stood beside her bike. I slid my stiff limbs to the ground. We three walked to the rift and looked through.

  A valley bound by peaks spread before us. Shelves of smooth rock surrounding the circumference made giant’s stepping-stones. The valley floor was only about a hundred feet below and fairly level except where broken by rock formations. Trees all but hid the grass, sand and patches of stony ground. A small stream white-watering over boulders ran diagonally from one side to the other.

  The trail forked. We could go down to the valley floor or along a wide ledge which wound out of sight around the rim.

  “Look yonder,” Chris said, pointing along the ledge.

  The trail disappeared and reappeared as it followed the towering walls. Across the valley, a black, oval shape marked the mountainside.

  “What is that? A cave mouth? He lives in a cave?”

  “Now we walk,” Gia said. But first she and Chris pushed their bikes behind a boulder.

  We took the ledge, the bleak mountainside looming over us. Gia and Chris walked close to the rock face and kept their eyes on the valley. We walked for twenty minutes.

  Gia stopped. “Mr. Plowman and I can go no farther,” she said as she pointed down at the valley floor.

  I moved away from her to peer down and didn’t see anything different at first. Four giant rocks rose from a clearing in the trees, more trees and smaller, blockier rocks beyond. Then I spotted smoke spiraling up. What I at first took for small rocks were manmade structures built of gray mountain stone.

  I looked back to see Gia bear left, leaving the trail where an outcropping bulged from the mountainside. Chris followed her behind the concealing rock. Wondering where we were going now, I went after them.

  We walked into a slot canyon, the smooth, towering walls no more than five feet apart and curving high overhead until mere inches separated them.

  “Now we wait while you talk to Cicero,” Gia said.

  “Maybe he’s not home,” I said, hoping like hell he wasn’t. I
suddenly had no inclination to talk to Cicero.

  “He’s here.”

  My legs went leaden as if all my weight sank to my ankles. I didn’t want to go on, yet did not understand my reluctance.

  Gia pulled pins from her hair; it tumbled down her back in a black waterfall.

  I slipped my backpack off and rotated my shoulders to loosen the kinks.

  “A village lies farther ahead,” Gia said.

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “It belongs to Cicero’s people, thus to Cicero. They serve him but don’t live with him. The Seer values his privacy too much to allow that. One of his minions is with him now.”

  “Won’t they sense us?”

  “No. The Seer and his people do not have that ability. If we hide, nobody will know we are here.”

  “They won’t?” Chris said as if he disbelieved her.

  “Yeah. Aren’t they all-seeing etcetera?” I added.

  “You will have to trust me on this,” Gia said, with a pointed look at Chris.

  “Okay.” Two of them, three of us. We could handle Cicero and whomever if this went the wrong way.

  A cool breeze lapped us, the first I felt in Bel-Athaer. It shuffled Gia’s hair on her shoulders and shivered over my scalp. Easy to think it was an omen telling me to get the hell out of here.

  Now I was here, here was the last place I wanted to be.

  “Forty-eight hours,” she continued.

  “Forty-eight… .” I stopped before the sentence finished forming. “Hell, you’re not coming with me.”

  “I see you missed the part where I said Plowman and I will wait for you. This is as close as we can safely go.”

  I regarded them with a scowl.

  “Miss Banks, a word,” Gia said. She beckoned with one hand and walked farther back into the canyon.

  She looked back down the rock chute to where Chris waited. Beyond him, the canyon’s rectangular entrance framed a small section of the valley.

  “What do you know of motherhood?”

  That stymied me for a moment as my brain tried to wrap around both question and concept. Motherhood? I’m the first to admit my idea of mothering is warped by my experiences in foster care homes. I know women who have kids, but I’m not privy to what goes on in their homes, how they care for their children. “Not much.”

  “A mother loves her children. If they rebel, she puts her foot down, perhaps she uses a little intimidation, or threats. But she loves them; she does her best for them. There may come a time when she must go outside her immediate family for help.”

  She paused as if expecting something from me.

  “Um. I guess so.”

  “And don’t believe all you hear. Motives can be misunderstood. History is not always as written.”

  God, I was tired of her going all enigmatic on me. “Why do you always speak in riddles?”

  “But you’re so good with riddles.”

  I glanced behind me. Although Chris stood back from us, with his enhanced hearing he surely heard Gia. Yet his face was a perfect blank. No surprise, nor awe, not even curiosity. He knew the underlying message in Gia’s words, as I did not.

  I turned back to her, but she had disappeared. I hate when she does that, too.

  Chris joined me. “A kiss for good luck?”

  His sheer gall amazed me. “You call yourself Royal’s friend, yet coming on to his girl is okay?”

  “You don’t belong to Royal.” His gray eyes turned dreamy, drawing me into them. “A woman belongs to no man. She is the perfect art form, beautiful, with the heart of a warrior. A woman meets, overcomes and survives challenges that would shrivel a man in his boots. A woman,” his fingers trailed down my arm and closed on my wrist, “is not a possession. She is a jewel to be cherished.”

  I knew it was a load of malarkey, but my pulse sped anyway. I wanted to lean in and let all my weight hang in his arms. I wanted to cup his smooth face, trace the shell of his ear with my fingers, put my lips to where his pulse beat in the hollow of his throat. But a smidgen of sanity knew my attraction was for what he represented, not the man himself. Tall, abnormally fast and strong, with skin which burned me.

  Royal.

  Expression wistful, he put his hands on my shoulders and gazed into my eyes. “Whatever happens in there, I am your friend, and would be more if you allow. I will wait for you.”

  His face closed with mine very slowly and I gazed, mesmerized, as I saw only his eyes. The softest touch of his mouth, a baby breath, then firm and mobile, his tongue probing, teasing, parting my lips. He kissed me unhurriedly. I felt sucked into some sultry, languorous place where only he and I existed. His slightly pointed teeth didn’t bother me as his long demon tongue caressed mine. It was a kiss to make a girl swoon.

  I could have kissed him back. I could have fallen into him, enveloped by his heat, swept up by his scent, enchanted by the promises his mouth and body made. It would have been so easy.

  But he wasn’t Royal. Royal’s kiss breathed life into me.

  I stepped back, hauled back, and slapped his face. Astonishment kept him immobile long enough for me to backhand his other cheek.

  “Swine,” I accused. “You think I don’t know what you did?”

  Cheeks glowing, he flashed his pointed teeth. “I kissed a beautiful woman and took pleasure in the experience.”

  “You used your whatever you call it on me.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “Just a little, my Sweet.” He brought our faces close again. “It didn’t take much, and don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

  I did, and I still would have enjoyed his lips if he’d not beguiled me. “Don’t try it again,” I said huskily against his mouth.

  He drew away. His lips hitched in a smile. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  I got my Ruger from my backpack and tucked it in the back of my waistband, slung the backpack over my unwounded shoulder. A little dizzy with dread, anticipation and the lingering sweetness of Chris’ lips, I took the first step.

  I looked back once. Chris leaned on the rock, one leg crossed over the other. He saluted, then blew me a kiss from puckered lips.

  Distance on a mountain trail is deceptive. A half mile as the crow flies developed into a dusty three-mile hike. I walked faster as I neared the cave - Cicero’s text said he expected Royal, perhaps Royal was here. Perspiration dampened my back, neck and hollow between my breasts when I glimpsed wide, deep, smooth stones steps leading up to a cave mouth like a circle with the bottom sliced off, and six square openings in the wall above.

  Gray stone buildings with flint tile roofs sat on the valley floor. Some, girdled by low rock walls, with paths leading to their doors and tiny flowerbeds, could be homes. Others were tall three-floor structures. Yet more were half-hidden by trees. Smoke spiraled from chimneys. No paved streets, but wide pebble paths wound and crossed to connect the buildings. Several paths led to green or yellow fields and a large pond.

  I watched for a few minutes, but nothing moved in the cave’s entrance, nor in the openings. Resettling my backpack, I trudged up the steps and inside.

  Smooth, pale, lustrous pearl-gray, the walls curved to meet overhead. I touched the near wall with my fingertips; so smooth it could have been mechanically carved, or channeled by a stream which flowed here for centuries. I followed the tunnel as it wound, until I came to a staircase which ascended inside a stairwell with an arched ceiling. I went up.

  I came out in a room big as a cathedral with high, ribbed ceiling. A dozen slim, looping stone arches either side of me separated it into three areas. I stood in the middle section and looking through the arches on my left saw square openings in rock walls six feet thick. Daylight misted through them, and I guessed the hazy green and brown was the valley below.

  Even the floor gleamed as if polished.

  A tall figure clad in a white, floor length, all-enveloping hooded cloak came through the arches
. A curved chin which made me think male, a pale mouth, but the drooping hood hid the rest of his face.

  “Cicero?” I asked.

  He unfolded his clasped hands, lifted them and unfastened the cloak’s clasp. The silky fabric slithered from his head, slid off his shoulders and fell to pool on the floor behind him.

  Tall as me, wings of silver-white hair fell either side of his pale face and back over his shoulders. Pale-blue eyes regarded me from beneath arching silver brows. His white, straight, round-necked robe covered his arms to his fingertips and touched toes which peeped through the gem-encrusted bands of his sandals. He looked familiar.

  He looked like me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Smiling, he spread his arms wide in welcome. “Hecate.”

  I half spun, moved to my right as I reached back and pulled my Ruger, clicked the safety off and pointed it at the stairwell before you could yell, she has a gun! But no one stood behind me. Still in a defensive posture, I turned my head to keep the guy in my line of vision.

  He moved two paces nearer, cupped hands held out to me placatingly. His voice, low and harsh, seemed too deep for his slender frame. “Hecate, as your parents named you, goddess of magic, the night, moon, and ghosts,” he said gently.

  Gray feathered his hairline and his smile made fine lines fan from the outer corners of his eyes.

  “Hecate Bon Moragh.”

  Panic fluttered in my chest.

  “I am your uncle, child. Your mother - ”

  “No.” I shook my head as if to disperse a swarm of gnats. I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to know. After years of wondering, I was afraid. “Is Royal here?”

  His voice cooled. “Ryel is not here.”

  “He didn’t make it?” My gaze darted frantically about the cavern. “But you expected him, right? If he’s not here yet, he… .” Crushed, I lost my voice. I’d hoped to find Royal here, and it would be over. No more searching, no more worrying.

  “I don’t expect him, Hecate. He has no reason to come here.”

  Irrational anger boiled in me, I tasted it as acid on my tongue. “What the fuck are you saying? You sent a message to his phone.”