Taming the Demon

by Doranna Durgin

  She took a breath, shook out her hands and brought herself back to this day, this now. And on this day, she had thank-you calls to make and bills to pay and the next event to arrange, not to mention a skip tracer with whom to touch base.

  She took the schedule pages into Compton’s private office, where she routinely handed them off directly. But the office stood empty, the windows still lightly veiled against the morning light. Caught off guard—she couldn’t remember a time she’d been in here alone—Natalie hesitated briefly and opted for efficiency, the few quick steps to lay the printouts neatly beside his keyboard.

  The monitor flickered to life; she stepped back, averting her gaze—but not quickly enough to avoid absorbing the screen image, a security camera feed frozen on an inexplicable frame of smudged shadow and patchy gray. A room. At night. Here on the estate? But why? And so she glanced again, confirmed that impression, found tiny blurs of light here—and there—just pinpricks. But there was nothing recognizable—no face, no human form. So why? And where?

  Not her business, that’s what. Just because she’d nudged the mouse didn’t give her license to pry. She stepped away from the desk and took her mind to her next task. Phone calls.

  “Natalie.”

  It wasn’t a voice filled with warm approval.

  She hadn’t heard him coming—hadn’t seen him. For a moment, startled, she saw the same predatory gleam in his eye that so often overtook Devin. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said. “I left your schedule.” And realized, with dread that took her by surprise, that he would see that she’d knocked the computer out of sleep mode.

  “In the future, Natalie, you may leave the schedule on the desk in our shared space,” he told her, no forgiveness in cold eyes.

  “I understand,” she said, because it was the only thing to say. And then, because she didn’t dare look at the monitor but she knew it needed more time to sleep, she added, “Are you well, sir?”

  He arched a brow. Silver hair styled crisply, features mature but not aging, every aspect of his appearance tended. “Completely well,” he said. “Did I give you occasion to ask?”

  She felt the immediate impulse to defer...pushed back against it, but no less respectful. “Not at all. But I do know that Devin wasn’t feeling well yesterday after dinner, so I’ve been concerned.”

  “Ah.” Compton relaxed, ever so slightly. “Perhaps he was unaccustomed to something in the meal. I don’t expect it was his usual quality of fare.”

  “No,” Natalie murmured, wondering at that little dig. “I don’t expect that it was.”

  “I have queries out for his replacement,” Compton said, because of course they’d discussed Devin’s departure first thing.

  “I was still hoping—” But she stopped herself, because there was nothing to hope. Even if Devin wanted back, he had walked out on the job. Compton wouldn’t have him.

  And she knew better than to think Devin would want it.

  She didn’t dare glance over at the monitor, but surely it had been long enough for the screen saver to kick in. Surely it was safe, now, to go back to her own space.

  Not that it should have mattered. Or that she should be second-guessing his lack of concern for the welfare of a guest at his table, given that guest’s sudden departure from employment.

  But something inside her did. Something inside her took note.

  And it was that part of her that Devin James had brought back to life.

  * * *

  Devin stared down the quiet Alley of Life—garden patches put to bed, litter neatly patrolled, graffiti painted away. He stared and took note, breathing deeply—grounding himself in its details. The wild road started in on him the moment he’d left her.

  Devin twisted aside from it, clawed away from it, held every determined moment of himself from it.

  Without Natalie, it came hard on him.

  But she’d given him ideas; she’d given him tools. She’d given him things that Leo had never had.

  So he centered himself in thoughts of Natalie—the high cut of her cheekbones, the slant of them; the unusual shape of her mouth, and the way the very corners curved upward, humor coming out even when she had no intention of smiling at all.

  Soft hair in his fingers, soft flesh beneath his hands, soft noises in his ears.

  That, he found, was a sweet, fierce pain that never failed to bring him back from the edge of the road.

  And now he had something to do.

  For now he had a beginning. He had, in the past several days since leaving the estate, discovered an architect who didn’t exist—for the man who’d ostensibly given Natalie his new office address not only no longer had the old office, he no longer worked in Albuquerque at all—and hadn’t done so for a number of months now. Still listed online, still in the phone book...but otherwise, no sign of him.

  And Devin had put out word on the men he’d killed, looking to identify them in absentia...looking for a trail. Too generic, most of the men, but the one with the tattoos? He thought he’d get a ping on that one.

  And Enrique. “Be careful,” he’d told the old man. “If you’re right that I was drugged the other night, that means Compton is definitely dirty—even if I can’t figure out how.”

  But Enrique had only smiled, a mean expression. “This is my neighborhood,” he said. “You—you’re my people. This man should have stayed to being dirty among his own kind, if he didn’t want to be noticed.”

  And so Enrique, too, did his looking.

  But for all Devin’s questions and all his thinking and all his effort to separate what was happening within him from what he still had of himself, here was where he found himself time after time. Early morning, sharp afternoon, fading day...deep midnight. One of the first Alley of Life spots, Natalie had said, and for as garbled as he’d been, he’d understood her well enough—absorbed her well enough. The horror of her experience here—here where he stood, his mind’s eye even now seeing a man stagger out of the alley.

  My brother.

  Easy to imagine what it would have looked like, two men silhouetted in battle, the one wrenching free from a grievous wound to rise up high above the other, the blade suddenly in hand...the blade turned traitor to them both.

  And so Leo had died, and Devin had lived, and now he stared down this alley buttressed by dried winter plume grasses, stakes marking the summer vegetable rows and honeysuckle vines winter-sere along the fence, neat patches of earth already prepared for the following spring. A thing of beauty...a thing of nurture. Here, in this place of death.

  Ironic.

  But what Devin felt most, amid the turmoil of what Natalie’s words had wrought in him—aware that once she knew, he could never expect her to look at him with that smile or take him with that mouth or make demands of him with those hands—had nothing to do with Natalie, or with Leo, or with Devin himself.

  It had to do with what he’d been too wounded, too grieving and too new to the blade to notice, when he’d been here with Leo years earlier. It had to do with the angry thrum in the air, a spark of metal hackles—still resonating in the blade, these years later, if not with the intensity of what it had felt that night. Intruder, other, warning, hiss and spit—

  And it had to do with what he’d felt in this blade only a few nights earlier. That same fury, that same territorial gnashing—that same insane fever of reaction, overlaid on a mean peyote haze that had left him with no defenses. Not against the blade, not against Natalie’s touch in his heart.

  And maybe that was the beginning, after all. That reaction...that fury.

  Years earlier, his brother had died for that insanity, that fury. Just over a week earlier, Devin had survived it—in the arms of the woman who had been there for both events.

  The common threads. The alleys.

  And Natalie.

  So maybe Sawyer Compton had some questions to answer—but first, Devin thought, he’d have to talk to Natalie. First, he thought, she deserved the truth.

  No ma
tter what came of it.

  * * *

  Sawyer Compton found himself displeased.

  Truly, the game was only worth playing so long as it was pleasing. Failing that, it was time to bring things to a close.

  Options, options.

  He stood before the vast window of the shared office—beside the drafting desk, there where he cut a striking figure in black slacks and black turtleneck—a working day, with his hair not quite as crisply styled as usual and the suggestion of a smudge on his hand.

  Plans for the restaurant spread before him on the desk; the estate spread before him out the window. His future spread before him in his mind.

  Nothing spontaneous about any of it. And he wanted Natalie off guard today, her mind deeply involved in work. Unprepared.

  “Have you decided?” he asked, just as abruptly as he’d meant to—startling Natalie from her careful research. A new caterer, he believed. As if it truly mattered.

  She lifted her head, tucking that wavy strand of sun-brushed hair into the darker mass of it. “About the bodyguard, you mean?”

  She’d been avoiding the subject for days. She might not still hold hopes that Devin James would return, but she wasn’t ready to cede that position to anyone else, either. Compton had no difficulty reading it in the flush that came up across those exquisite cheekbones anytime the subject came up.

  She might have had some questionable moments on the streets, but she’d never been cut out to lie.

  Not from that first moment he’d first—and finally—met her, at the first Alley of Life dedication—lurking on the edges, a young woman too thin, too anxious, too jumpy. Dressed in thrift-store chic, everything worn but everything neat.

  There hadn’t been much to see at that dedication. A short, grumpy alley, still resonating with the flavor of death—not that anyone else could taste it. The ground broken, what there was of it; the seeds planted. A perfectly placed arrangement of potted plants brought in to start things off right.

  But it hadn’t been a coincidence that the dedication had been planned on Natalie’s morning off—from both school and work. Not coincidence that she was there at all. For if at first he’d kept track of her because of what she’d witnessed, he quickly grew to recognize her as a potential resource—and he’d known just how to guide her along.

  The right words, at the right time...and she found herself back in school. Taking business classes, basic office software classes...and excelling at it. A nudge from a helpful friend here; a kind word at the right time, there; a stroke of good luck just when needed.

  Until there she was, in the right time at the right place to strike up a startled conversation with the man who’d started the Alleys of Life project. One step closer to becoming his assistant.

  No coincidence at all.

  Of course, he’d hoped to learn more from her, along with his intentions to use her however he could—knowing her background, knowing her weaknesses. And he’d expected, from what Ajay had first told him, that she’d spent more time with Leo James. He’d expected that she’d spent at least some time with Devin James.

  Ajay had thought it of her...accused it. But Ajay was often a fool.

  How fortunate that she’d turned out to be such a good assistant. No trouble at all to keep around until the time came when he could make better use of her.

  Now.

  Because that look on her face said it all. She hadn’t known Devin James then.

  But she did now.

  And now she carefully closed her notebook and put her pen aside. “I’ve been thinking,” she said. “There’s been no sign of trouble. And the restaurant is moving ahead. I think whoever wanted the project stopped has seen the inevitability of it. Do you really suppose...?”

  Wise, she was, to let the words linger unspoken rather than directly contradict his intent. But as it happened...her careful suggestion suited him, too.

  She took a breath, hesitated on it and came as close to blurting words as she ever did. “May I ask you—”

  “Of course, Natalie,” he said, truly curious.

  She pushed her notebook aside. “You’ve done so many good things...so many projects that could tie in with this one, and help build the goodwill factor. The wells project in Brazil...the latrine system in that little African region. The clinics in the Balkans—”

  Death in the favela...memorialized. Death in the dusty brush, memorialized. Death in the mountains, memorialized.

  He said, “I don’t recall mentioning those projects to you.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t.” Good for her, facing it right on like that. She stretched her hand open in that odd gesture of hers, relaxed it again. “I stumbled on to them while I was looking into the first alleys. I guess the restaurant got me to thinking about them again.”

  “Your life has changed significantly since the days you lived in that area.” As if he didn’t know just what she’d seen there. “What do you gain by dwelling on them?”

  Paternal concern. The perfect touch.

  She frowned, looking at her notebook. “It somehow all seems to tie together, is all. That we met there...that you started the gardens, and now you’re starting the restaurant. And I just had no idea that you’d been doing this all around the world.”

  “I enjoyed traveling when I was younger.” Keep it simple. No need to mention what he’d brought home from those travels.

  That which he also intended to acquire from Devin.

  “About your new bodyguard,” he said.

  “I’d really rather not.” She hesitated after those bold words, then shook her head. “Please...maybe I can talk to Devin’s friend Rick. If I could only understand—” But she stopped herself, smiling a little wryly. “I guess that’s personal, though.”

  Compton allowed himself a small snort. “Natalie, it’s perfectly human. You shared an intense near-death experience together. Of course you’re invested in his presence. But he is not a man without troubles. I would hate to see you hurt.”

  In fact, I would find it perfectly convenient.

  Her phone rang; she glanced at him for tacit permission, and picked it up when he nodded. That the following conversation surprised her, he could tell; other than the mention of a tattoo, the details of it were quickly lost to him as his own line rang through.

  Ajay. Calling here, where Natalie could have overheard his voice, or possibly even picked up the phone. “There will be consequences,” he said, not bothering with a greeting.

  Ajay didn’t bother with a greeting, either—or with apologies. The man had some sense, after all. “Enrique Perez,” he said. “James’s old man buddy. He’s been calling in favors. He’s asking about you and the gardens. About that garden.”

  “He is nothing,” Compton said, and shifted to hang up with no further ado.

  “He’s been in that neighborhood for a long time,” Ajay said—as usual, coming just short of calling Compton boss as if he was in some gangster movie. “He’s got a lot of favors to call.” He hesitated. “If someone puts us together—”

  Compton held his words for a moment. A long, tense moment, his mouth tightly pressed together. A glance at Natalie showed her deep in her own surprise, and paying no attention to him.

  Just as well.

  It looked like he had someone else to hurt.

  Chapter 14

  Devin sat on Natalie’s tiny covered entryway. Waiting. The manila envelope had frayed slightly under the constant attention of his fingers—worrying the edges, turning it over in his grip.

  If Compton’s men knew he was here, they didn’t approach him. Wise. Not that he’d advertised his presence—his truck was out on the street, his footprints light in the soil along the property line. But here on the porch, he was hardly inconspicuous.

  All the same, Natalie was deep enough in thought as she approached, late in the afternoon—head down, legs striding in graceful movement, coat open to the failing sunshine—that she stopped short only at the last moment, one foot about
to land on the entry flagstone. “Devin,” she breathed.

  “Hey,” he said, and shrugged. A rueful thing, that shrug. “Listen,” he said. “About—” And realized suddenly that he didn’t have any idea how to go there. He shook his head. Maybe there was too much to it, anyway—too much to fix.

  But there were still things to make right, and that was a different thing.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, taking her foot back off the slightly raised stone on which he sat. Her words struck him as wary.

  Couldn’t blame her, really.

  But maybe there was something else, too—something of concern, something of anxiety—something that very nearly wanted to blurt its way out, except she, too, shook her head and kept it to herself. “Devin? You’re okay?”

  “Missing you,” he said, which wasn’t what he’d meant to say, either. He laughed at himself and looked away. “Helluva thing. I didn’t think I’d known you long enough.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her mouth tighten, her head lift. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but it didn’t seem likely that there was any good interpretation. “Sorry,” he said, and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I’ve decided that you deserve some truth. But I wasn’t expecting that particular truth to come out.”

  “Truth would be good,” she said, without relaxing. And still, something lingered in her expression. A decision, being made.

  He handed her the envelope. Not sealed, not official—an old scratched-out address on the front. Just enough to hold the photos.

  He didn’t watch her hands as she opened it. He watched her face. Watched her eyes widen at the first photo, the very first Alley of Life—potted flowers in full bloom, container vegetables thriving, the pampas grasses arcing gracefully in midsummer growth. The Alley. She met his gaze, mouth open—and he shook his head. Nodded at the pictures. And watched.

  She slipped the next picture to the top, and inhaled sharply. “This—” She looked at him, looked at the photo...gestured at him with it. “This is—”