The Demon Hunters

by Linda Welch

  “Have you come to kill me?” Why did he think she would kill him? Because he knew too much?

  My spine stiffened as a tall figure walked through the crowd of people who headed for the theater. She stood out in her beige linen pantsuit, the cream gloves and big Panama hat. Men, woman, children, they instinctively drifted out of her path, but every person eyed her. She walked to the truck. The rear door opened, slammed shut. “We can go now,” Gia said.

  “What about Vance?”

  I watched her in the rearview mirror, her face immobile, her lips so tight I wondered she could speak through them. “It’s taken care of. We should go now.”

  “We saw his men go in.”

  “I told him to call them. I want them there when the police arrive.”

  “But what did you do to - ?”

  Sudden, she leaned on the back of my seat with her mouth almost in my hair. Her voice seemed to penetrate my skull. “The police will be here soon. Go!”

  We went.

  Royal drove the back road from the Megaplex slowly and cautiously, because people in and about the big complex think they own the road, and most don’t look for traffic before stepping off the sidewalk. I often think to myself, sure you have right-of-way, but if a drunk comes bombing along here he won’t care about that.

  We pulled up at the stop sign. “Which way?” Royal asked Gia.

  “East Monroe.”

  I eyed her in the rearview mirror. “Is Jacob there?”

  “Yes.”

  Was this it, then? We would find Jacob and discover what induced him to sacrifice his people? Gia’s eyes gleamed behind her huge dark glasses. Did I see the light of battle, or tears? I didn’t dare ask after Rio.

  ***

  The house sat in a row of virtually identical houses: two floors, an attached two car garage, brick facing and partial wood siding. Unlike the others, this one had an abandoned air. Curtains framed the windows, but the lawn looked scraggly, the edges untrimmed.

  I let down the truck window. “Is he in there?”

  Gia didn’t reply. Wound tight as a coiled spring, she stood in the street, looking along it at the house.

  Royal opened his door. "I don’t think Vance would leave him there alone.”

  “He is there, he and a human male, but he is not. . . .” Gia lifted her clenched hands to her breasts.

  Royal and I exchanged puzzled looks. “Not what?” I asked.

  Her voice whispered out. “Rio.”

  She dropped her hands. Her face had lost all color. “He told me Rio is here, but that man is not Rio.”

  Royal stepped out the truck. “How could he lie to you?”

  Her mouth was set in a thin line now, her eyes enormous dark craters. “I asked, where is Rio Borrego? I did not ask if he still lived.”

  She started off a second after I got out the truck, and we hurried to keep up with her. I felt awful. All this time looking for her Rio, and now this. We were too late.

  No windows faced us as we walked along the street, so we would not be seen by someone within unless they came outside, or we got in front of the house. We walked across the side lawn as if we had every right to be there, and stopped at the corner.

  Gia kept her voice low, although it vibrated a little. "He is upstairs.”

  I didn’t know how she kept herself together. If I were her, I could see myself doing one of two things: falling shrieking to the pavement, or heading back to the Emerson to kill Vance.

  “She’s right,” Royal agreed. “Two people in there. But let us check out the ground floor first.”

  Thank God one of us used a little logic.

  We crept around back. Naturally, the patio doors were locked, but Royal fished a little doodad out his jeans pocket and picked the lock. I looked out over a backyard of baked dirt, the shoulder-high wood fence listing drunkenly inward. A quiet neighborhood of older homes, the only sound came from birds and the barking of a dog the next block over.

  Gia stood close to the house as her gaze swept back and forth across the yard. I knew she looked for disturbed soil, a hastily dug grave. A tiny red pearl beaded her lower lip where she bit into it. She saw me watching and looked away.

  The doors let us into a living room sparsely furnished with a brown vinyl couch, three matching armchairs, a battered oak coffee table and a telephone on the floor. Dark stains patterned the worn old brown carpet. An alcove led to a small kitchen where fast-food containers, dirty paper plates and plastic utensils littered yellow Formica countertops. The place smelled of cigarette smoke, sweat and decaying food. We eased through a tiny hall to the half-bathroom which, I judged, was the sole territory of men. The one other room was empty. I pulled my gun, saw Royal already had his drawn. We moved upstairs.

  I’ve never seen anyone could move as silently as Royal and Gia. I crept behind them, worried I’d step on a creaking board and give the game away.

  Four closed doors, probably three bedrooms and a bathroom. Gia pointed at the west bedroom. Royal nodded, but gestured exaggeratedly at the other doors. I took it to mean Jacob was in the west bedroom, but Royal wanted to check out the other rooms first. He operated in cop mode, he had to see what there was to see.

  Gia wasn’t having any of it. She went west, and after a tiny hesitation, Royal followed, with me at his heels. She hit the door with the flat of her hand; it burst open and she burst into the room. Royal and I crowded in behind her, then split, he to the left, me to the right.

  Aluminum foil covered the two windows, making the room dim, but that didn’t present a problem; we could still see the interior. This room contained two single cots with rumpled blankets. A young blond-haired man in blue jeans and black T-shirt sat on the edge of a mattress. I recognized Mick Taylor from the files on Vance’s computer.

  He reacted immediately, jumping to his feet and charging us. My gun tracked him, but I didn’t fire. He was unarmed. Gia blurred across in front of me and Royal, and before I could blink had her hand on the fellow's throat. She hoisted him off the ground with unnatural strength, swung him and pinned him to the wall by his neck. The man gagged and tore at her hands, kicking spastically several inches off the floor.

  “Tiff! Behind you!” Royal yelled.

  Holding my gun two-handed, I turned in a half crouch, but the whirlwind of arms and nails and teeth avoided me and latched onto Gia’s shoulder, moving so fast I was left crouched near the doorway with my mouth open. For a moment, I couldn’t understand what I saw, as it shifted to bite and gouge and flail at Gia’s back.

  I squinted in the dim light. A boy. He had to be Jacob.

  With Taylor still dangling from one hand, Gia tore the kid loose. She kind of flicked her wrist and he flew the full width of the room, crashed into the wall, then slid down it to fold into a heap against the baseboard.

  I recalled how that felt.

  Taylor gagged and fought for breath. I was afraid Gia would kill him. He tried to say something. Gia eased up a little.

  “Don't . . . hurt him. Trying . . . protect me,” he gurgled out.

  Jacob glared up at Gia. I remembered he was mute.

  “Don’t hurt him,” Taylor gasped.

  Gia opened her hand and he dropped to the floor, caught himself, went down on one knee. He put one hand to his throat and rubbed it as he looked up at Gia. But Gia no longer took any notice of him.

  Jacob and Gia were having a staring match, and neither wavered at first. Then the lad kind of whimpered and his narrow shoulders loosened.

  He crawled across the room on hands and knees, hesitating every couple of feet, then stopped altogether, crouching there, staring up at Gia with his head cocked on one side as if listening to something I couldn’t hear. Gia nodded her head. He came on again, faster this time, covering the last few feet in a scuttle. He wrapped himself around Gia’s legs like a fawning puppy. She bent over and laid one palm on his head. He stilled. His eyelids drooped.

  I stared at him. He looked like a waif who finally found a home, dro
wsing with a tiny smile coming and going on his mouth. I moved closer and he opened his eyes and looked at me, then sighed and closed them again.

  I crept right up to him and knelt, with Royal at my back, trusting him to protect me should the kid attack. But I didn’t think he would.

  A truly beautiful child with skin the color of almonds and clear, dark emerald eyes, his yellow hair in thick, coarse ropes past his shoulders.

  Gia shot upright, her eyes widening. As if straining to hear, she cocked her head slightly, turned it to look back at the door. Her face contorted and she wailed—I have never heard a sound as piercing, as eerie, as bereft. She whirled, leaving Jacob with his arms clutching at something no longer there, a blur in the air, then nothing.

  ***

  We found Rio Borrego stuffed in the bloody bathtub, Gia standing over him. Gia was right: he was a beautiful young man. Was. I saw little resemblance to her description of a youth with dusky skin, dark slashing brows and gleaming black hair.

  He lived, but barely, so weak, neither Gia nor Royal sensed the flutter of his heart beneath the strong pounding of mine and Taylor’s. His grotesquely angled limbs indicated both his arms were broken in two places, his ankles were broken, his kneecaps shattered. At least one rib strained to poke through his chest. Shallow incisions, burns and severe bruising patterned his naked body.

  Rio had been left to die. Tortured, dehydrated, starved, suffering from blood loss; I don’t know how he hung onto the little life left in him. Yet when Gia threw herself down beside the tub, moaning and whispering his name, he opened his swollen eyes to slits and murmured, “I didn’t tell them nothin’, Gia,” before he passed out again.

  I stepped into the hall and dialed 9-1-1. I gave emergency services the location and cut the call, knowing none of us should be here when they arrived. They would come even though the call could be a prank; they had to.

  When I returned to the bathroom to clear everyone out, I stepped into a confrontation.

  Gia faced Taylor, Jacob squatting between them. Her eyes looked true black as she stared at Taylor, her face blank, expressionless. Royal stood off to one side, alert, his gun still in his hand.

  “You did not hurt Rio,” Gia said in a gelid voice. “But neither did you interfere when your friends tortured him.” She took one step nearer.

  Taylor flattened his back to the wall. He swallowed hard, but he didn’t try to run. He knew that would be futile.

  “No!”Jacob said.

  He could talk. He fooled old Stadelmann all along.

  He rose up and stood with his back to Taylor. His emerald eyes glared at Gia. He had a low voice, an accent I couldn’t identity, and he spoke slowly, aggressively. “I did not help your paramour - am I also guilty?”

  Gia cocked her head on one side. She sighed. “Very well. Your logic is flawed, but I will not harm this man who means so much to you.” She swept her palm over her forehead, a weary gesture. “We must hold true to those we love; they are with us so briefly.”

  Then she briskly turned back to the bathtub, just as the paramedics, two squad cars and a fire engine roared to a stop in front of the house.

  “We have to leave, now,” Royal said, holstering his Glock as he stepped to the window.

  Gia turned on me. “You called them?”

  I looked down at Rio. “Well, yeah.”

  She knelt beside the tub and laid her palm on his brow. “Yes. We must let them take him. The police will know this house belongs to Vance. It will be another nail in his coffin.” She bent over; her lips lingered on his damaged cheek. “We will be together again soon,” she said softly.

  “Gia, we must go,” Royal said.

  In a blur, he scooped me up in his arms, and I don’t remember much more till we were back in his apartment. I don’t know where Gia, Jacob and Taylor went. I was thankful to be alone with Royal.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Three days later we watched the TV rerun of Lieutenant Mike Warren, head of Clarion PD Homicide Division, standing shoulder to shoulder with Clarion’s Chief MacFarland as they gave a press conference. Flash bulbs popped all around them and two FBI agents. The FBI was supposed to be the star performers, but Mike stole the show. I could see he was pretty happy, having the gang who killed four people handed him on a platter, and pleased as punch Clarion PD nailed them.

  We missed the live broadcast. We were kind of . . . busy. You know how it goes: sex, eat, sex, shower, sleep, shower-sex, eat. . . .

  People throughout the States wanted a reason, a motive for the murders, but Mike didn’t have one. He said Vance and his hit squad would spend the rest of their lives in an institution for the criminally insane, and let them make what they would of that.

  The TV station aired pictures of Vance and each of his men. Mick Taylor wasn’t one of those arrested.

  I’m sure Gia did something to make Vance compliant. I wonder if he remembers a creature he abhorred got inside his mind and saw all his dirty secrets. That she didn’t kill him was the biggest surprise of my life. I decided she thought being locked up in an institution for the rest of his days is a punishment worse than death, and when you think about it, she’s right. When you’re dead, it’s all over, unless you die violently and linger as a shade. I don’t think Vance has a hope in hell of ever getting out of there. I’m sure Gia will see to it.

  “You should talk to Mike,” Royal said.

  I leaned on his shoulder. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”

  “Now would be as good a time as any.”

  “Nah. He’s busy.”

  “He is also in a very good mood.”

  “Right now?”

  He handed me his phone. I groaned, and dialed Mike’s direct number.

  Fifteen minutes later I walked into Clarion’s Homicide Division. Royal thought I should talk to Mike alone. He and Mike didn’t have a problem. Just me. His exact words as he dropped me off at the curb were “suck it up.”

  I looked straight ahead, across the squad room at Mike’s door, which stood ajar. Brad Spacer grinned and toasted me with his coffee cup. The three other officers in there stared then went back to their paperwork.

  I squared my shoulders, tapped on the doorframe and went in the office.

  Mike looked up from an open file folder, closed it and pushed it to one side of his messy desk. He didn’t look happy to see me, but he didn’t seem mad either. He even managed his version of a smile as I took the chair facing his desk. He didn’t make it easy for me, though. He kept his mouth shut, waiting for me to begin the conversation.

  “How are things, Mike?”

  He leaned back, folding his hands over his belly. “Pretty good, Tiff. You saw the press conference?”

  “Sure did. Congratulations, Mike.”

  He dropped his chin, gave it a little shake.”Wish I could take the credit, but any anonymous call led us to Vance and his cronies.”

  He lifted his head and met my gaze. “What can I do for you?”

  This would not be easy. I’m not one for apologies, even when I’m wrong; they have to fight their way out my mouth. “I’ve been thinking. Royal and I have our own agency now and it could be we’ll be cooperating with one police department or another, likely Clarion.”

  He nodded again, looking thoughtful, then said, “Could be.”

  “When that happens, I don’t want our history getting in the way. So, I’m apologizing, Mike. I should have understood your position. I did understand, but I was . . . upset.”

  He twined his fingers together as he looked past me. “Those children―the killer seems to have gone to ground, but he’ll be back. They always come back.”

  His gaze swooped on me. “When he does, maybe you’d like in on it.”

  That would never happen, but I couldn’t tell Mike. “Really? After what happened in Danby?”

  “I don’t ground a man for one mistake. You quit.”

  So I could have stayed on at the PD. But then Royal and I would not have our agen
cy.

  “So long as Royal’s here to keep you in line,” Mike added.

  Don’t bristle, Tiff. I smiled, though it hurt. “Royal and I are a good team.”

  “He’s a good guy.” And there it was, the unspoken, I told you so.

  “I know that. I always knew it. I’m sorry I ignored my gut feeling back then.” I tried another tentative smile. “Are we good?”

  He stared me in the eyes, scrunched up his mouth. “We’re good.” He hunched over his desk, folding his arms on the surface. “Anything else I can do for you, Tiff?”

  I settled more comfortably in my chair, swung one leg over the other. “Since you ask.” I beetled my eyebrows up and down. “What’s the inside dope on the Vance case? You said he confessed.”

  He grinned. Lieutenant Mike Warren actually grinned at me. He must be über pleased with himself. “Easiest homicide case I ever worked” He slowly shook his head side to side as if in wonderment. “We didn’t have to say one word; he spoke up the minute we walked in his office. No lies, no evasion. He showed us files in his computer which detailed his kills, the locations, the names of the targets. Strangest thing, it was as if he prepared for us beforehand, as if he expected us, the incriminating files up on his PC screen and his gang of thugs standing meekly by waiting to be cuffed.

  “We got an emergency services call an hour later reporting a kid half beaten to death in a house on East Monroe. Alissario Arellano Borrego. The house belongs to Vance.”

  “And?”

  “We’ll know more when he wakes up. He’s in bad shape.” He shifted, rearranging his big body in his big chair. “You know to keep it to yourself.”

  I did, and I recognized a conciliatory gesture. Mike need not have told me any of that; he was letting me know I was back in, to a degree.

  I got up from the chair. “Thanks, Mike.” I moved closer so I could reach across the desk. He looked at my hand before he enfolded it in his.

  I smiled, stepped back so our hands fell apart, turned and walked out his office. I kept my smile as I went through the squad room and made my way out the building