by Linda Welch
***
“All good?” Royal asked as I slid along the soft leather passenger seat of his pickup and pulled the door closed.
I fastened my seat belt. “More than good. He didn’t throw me out. He even talked about Vance. Of course if he knew we were involved, I’d be in a holding cell.”
“I talked to a few old friends in the division. They don’t know Vance killed more than four people in the States, and more in Europe before he moved his operation here. Gia must have removed their names from Vance’s database.”
“So not only is she a successful author, she’s a talented hacker.”
Our next stop would be Clarion Regional. We headed south along West Temple, climbing the hill which leads to South Clarion. The farther we got from downtown, as we drove the older stretch of West Temple, the more stores had CLOSED signs on their windows. Seeing any store closed down is bad enough, but the little old ones with clapboard sides look sad. I recalled when Smudgie’s Donuts sat in that empty lot, and the smell of hot, spicy food on the air from what once housed the Cajun restaurant. Like in too many other places, the small businesses can’t complete with the new mega-stores. The owners leave the small buildings to peel and come apart, until they have to be torn down.
We turned west down Regional Drive, the new road built specifically for the new, state-of-the-art hospital, and entered the parking lot. Royal had to drive around for a minute or two before a parking spot opened up.
We were going to see Rio Borrego and we half expected to say goodbye. I suppose that was our purpose, to say farewell to the young man who protected Gia Sabato with his life. When you see someone so damaged and know why, and how they ended up that way, when they’re part of your investigation, you feel an unrealistic responsibility.
We took an elevator to the intensive care unit. A middle-aged woman wearing the garb of a volunteer sat behind the desk. Royal strolled over there. Supporting himself with one hand on the counter, he lounged over it. “Which room is Allesario Borrego’s?
The volunteer had a hard face, dark skin with cheeks polished like an apple, a tight-lipped mouth with deep grooves either side and small, dark eyes. With her hair pulled back in a bun tight enough to serve as a helmet, she only needed a little lacy cap to look like a matron in a Dickens novel.
“Are you a relative?”
“Friends,” he said with a smile.
A smile from Royal usually works wonders, but she seemed immune. “Only family is allowed. I’m sorry,” she said, sounding not at all so.
Small frown lines creased between his eyebrows. “Can you tell us how he is?”
“Only if you’re family.”
Royal’s long arm reached over the counter and he captured her hand in his. “Thank you, Miss. . . .” He glanced at her nametag. “May I call you Doris?”
Her expression changed. It softened, and she fluttered her short lashes at him. “You certainly may.” She put her other hand over Royal’s. “You know, I don’t like this subterfuge, but I follow orders and the Director doesn’t want to bring the media down on us.”
“Of course he does not,” Royal said in a soothing tone.
“I see no reason I shouldn’t tell you Mr. Borrego is no longer at Clarion Regional, but a seriously injured man walking out on his own two feet two days after admittance, apparently healed, could be seen as a miracle by the unworldly.”
“I see your point,” Royal said. He patted the back of her hand. “I hope someone came for him. He should not be alone.”
“We released him to Miz Sabato and Mr. Clare. I’m sure they’ll watch over him. Miz Sabato assured us of that.”
“Well, thank you, Doris,” Royal said with one more pat on her hand. Then he let her go.
Her eyes flared to twice the size, maybe as big as mine had become. Her breath came fast. I think she was about to hyperventilate, but she spluttered instead.
Royal and I got out of there fast.
As we rode the elevator down with two women and a medic, I tried not to be angry, but seeing it happen took me back to Gia putting her will on me, and on Royal, and this woman was no felon.
“Not what you think, Tiff,” Royal murmured.
Was I so transparent? Maybe my hunched shoulders and stiff neck clued him in to my feelings. “Sure looked that way,” I hissed out the side of my mouth as we stepped out the elevator, hurrying so the other occupants could go on their way.
“I made her relax,” he replied in an undertone.
“Made her?”
“It’s one of those things . . . you know.”
Obviously I wasn’t familiar with the variations of demon beguilement. “No, I don’t. You better enlighten me.”
“Not everyone is susceptible. Those who are, they relax to the extent they will in all likelihood tell me whatever they are thinking.”
I slowed my pace as we walked through the almost empty foyer. “But she looked shocked afterward.”
He walked close, his shoulder just short of brushing mine. “Unfortunately, they remember everything they said with no idea why they opened up to me. I’m sure it can be disconcerting.”
I threw a glance his way. “Disconcerting? I would freak if you did that to me!”
“I don’t do it casually, Tiff. And I would never do it to you. You know that.”
It didn’t seem as bad as forcing his will on a person. Made them relax, huh? They got so comfortable with him, they had to open up, like you do when you share a secret with your very best friend.
I slanted my eyes at him again. “How many times did you use that during police interrogations?”
“Tiff!” he said in mock alarm. “That would be unprofessional.”
I rolled my eyes.
***
I wonder about Rio Borrego. A person can’t heal so fast from injuries as bad as his. So what really happened there?
I remember Ronald’s and John’s conviction that Daven Clare died outside his house when it burned to the ground. Did he? Or did he survive almost certain incineration without a scar to show for it just weeks later? If Dark Cousins can miraculously recover from near death, have they the power to heal a broken human body?
A week after Vance’s arrest I woke in the night to hear Royal’s low murmur and Gia’s laughter peal through the house. Alarmed and abruptly wide awake, I pulled my robe on and went cautiously down the stairs.
***
Royal sat at my kitchen table.
“I heard something,” I said as I went in the kitchen.
He gave me a rather wan, tired smile. “She’s gone now.”
“Why was she laughing?”
“She told me something she found amusing, although really it is not.”
I stood close to him with my hands in the pockets of my robe. “Do I get to know?”
Royal shuffled his chair back from the table and pulled me onto his knees. “I can tell you what Dark Cousins are not.”
I put my arms around his neck. “Less of the cryptic, please.”
“I can’t be tall, dark and mysterious?”
I squeezed his neck with my fingers. “Tell me. Everything.”
“Do I get a reward?” he asked, his nose in my hair.
His breath bathed my neck, and sticking to my guns was not easy. But I fixed my fingers in his hair and tugged. “Royal,” I warned. “Do not mess with a woman woken at three in the morning by a bitch cackling in her kitchen.”
He caught my fingers. “All right. You win. She told me why Vance hunted us.” His squinted, trying to look enigmatic. “Think tall, eerie, long teeth and an aversion to sunlight.”
My eyebrows tried to meet my hairline. ”Honestly?”
He nodded. “A regular Van Helsing.”
“Gia got that out his mind?”
Maybe Gia laughed at the irony of cultivating the persona of the very creature Vance hunted.
Royal nodded again. “We don’t know how long he was on his mad quest, if he killed innocent people before he met up with
Maud - perhaps she learned of his obsession and saw an opportunity to avenge her father - he said she approached him. She revealed her true appearance, by which we assume she put glamour on him to make him see her as one of the evil creatures he hunted, and told him she would identify her own people.”
“You mean misidentify.”
“Yes. But Vance was never happy with the arrangement. He had only her word to go on, and although he cared not at all whether he could be killing innocents, he did care he could be failing in his duty to rid the world of evil.
“Then he met Stadelmann at a function in the States and they became friends. Which could be one of the reasons Vance did not kill the old man when he took Jacob from him. Stadelmann didn’t mention it, but his bargain with the natives included possessions stolen from the expedition and preserved for all those years. He found another treasure in Myanmar: Elizabeth’s journal. He showed it to Vance.”
“The etchings on Nagka’s walls. . . .”
He nodded. “He thought Elizabeth’s tale and her description of the etchings proved the existence of vampires, and when Vance’s genuine interest in Nagka led Stadelmann to introduce him to his protégé, Vance didn’t need much to convince himself he had a real live vampire. He wanted to kill Jacob, then decided he could use the boy, so he took him from Stadelmann along with the journal. He knew Stadelmann smuggled Jacob into the country and kept him hidden, so would not run to the police.
“Jacob led him to Dark Cousins and Vance felt sure of Jacob. When he observed his victims, before he killed them, he saw those Maud identified as normal, human people, but Jacob pointed him at pale-skinned, secretive persons, who seemed to have mysterious pasts lacking in history. Why, they even avoided direct sunlight. Vance saw what he wanted to.”
“So they do stay out of the sun on purpose? I thought it was Gia trying to make folk wonder, adding mystique to her profile.” Because that’s what she created when she reinvented herself: a mysterious woman who appeared out of nowhere, with no past. An author who fans hoped wrote from experience, not who concocted fantasy.
“They are sensitive to harsh sunlight.” Royal huffed through his nose. “They will not burst into flames, but they could get an uncomfortable sunburn.” He frowned and I wondered if he gave me information he didn’t mean to.
He hurried on: “Then Vance didn’t need Maud anymore. And she was unstable, a liability. So he tried to get rid of her.”
Poor Maud. She asked for forgiveness on her deathbed, but did she repent beforehand? Is that why she tried to point us in the right direction? Or did she think Jacob would give the game away by telling Vance she’d marked the wrong people for death? Whatever her motives, she did bring the Charbroiler down.
His arms tightened around my waist. “Maud stole Elizabeth’s journal from Vance. She knew he had Rio, and somehow, that Gia and Daven came to me for help finding the Charbroiler.”
Although I saw nothing significant in Elizabeth’s narration, Royal and the Dark Cousins did, and I have a gut feeling it was more, much more, than the etchings on Nagka’s walls. Maud knew when Royal read the journal he would guess the identity of the ancients of Nagka and show the book to the Dark Cousins. She knew they would go to Nagka and learn of the boy who survived and of the elderly, white-haired European who took the villagers’ prize from them. After that, it would be only a matter time until they talked to Stadelmann and tracked down Vance. I’d wished for a nice, explanatory letter, but Maud knew what she was doing when she sent the journal. Royal would see the clues in those pages, but if it fell into anyone else’s hands they would be none the wiser. Unfortunately it did fall into someone else’s hands. Mine.
“If I’d gave you the journal in the first place. . . ,” I began, but didn’t finish the sentence. Not that I felt like a fool - how was I supposed to know I held an important clue in my hands? But I did regret the time wasted and the tortuous path we followed to find Jacob and put Vance where he belonged.
Royal didn’t reply, bless him. But when I looked back, he was whistling softly between his teeth, trying to look angelic.
I tried not to laugh. Had to.
“What about Jacob? Why did he lead Vance to Dark Cousins?” I asked.
“He thought he searched for his people, and found them, but he never got to meet them. Each time Jacob sensed others of his kind, Vance told the boy he would contact them. He said the modern world was too dangerous a place for Jacob, but he, Vance, would find Jacob’s people and reunite them. Jacob was beginning to wonder why, when Vance arrived at the location, his people mysteriously disappeared, but he did not suspect Vance had them killed.”
So Jacob was a Dark Cousin. “I can’t imagine how he feels.”
“Jacob does not know he betrayed his family. Gia did not tell him.”
I guess that means even something like her can be merciful.
I kept my tone casual. “I feel sorry for him. Poor kid, there alone for all this time after Elizabeth and his people were killed.”
“I think the villagers cared for him well. He was something of a prize for them. Stadelmann must have paid them a fortune, and I am sure Jacob allowed them to sell him because he wanted to be with the professor.”
I put my head on his shoulder and indulged in a smug smile, wondering when he’d realize he had confirmed what I’d suspected since I saw Jacob in the house on East Monroe. I may not be the smartest pup in the litter, but knowing what I know, having seen what I have seen, I don’t always dismiss what should be impossible. Demons lie by omission, and so do Dark Cousins. That’s what Gia did. When she told us about Daven’s e-mail and the slaughtered colony, she neglected to mention it happened in 1887. Whatever they are, the Dark Cousins live a long, long time, and the lone survivor of the massacre, the boy who betrayed his people, was over a century old.
Jacob, whose given name was Teo-Papek.
Epilogue
So now I know more about the Dark Cousins and our last case, but I’m left with as many questions as I started with.
How did Rio Borrego, who is neither Gelpha nor Dark Cousin, bounce back from near death in a matter of days? Did he have help from someplace, or someone, other than Clarion General?
I understand why Gia appeared out of nowhere: when you live that long, you have to reinvent yourself every now and then. But why is Jacob, an ancient entity, still a child? Did he somehow freeze that way, or can Dark Cousins alter their appearance, like Gelpha can, only in a spectacular way? He was an adolescent when he went to the native villagers after the expedition’s bearers killed his people - did he remain so for all those long years, until he chose to leave there with Hans Stadelmann? Although the Boys from Rangoon feared the demons, from their reaction to Daven, I think the local population revered them; perhaps they held him in awe and felt blessed to host an ageless entity.
If Jacob survived, did others escape doomed Nagka? Did Elizabeth’s heathen king truly perish in the ashes of the temple? If Dark Cousins can bring a man back from the brink of death, did Elizabeth really die in the lost city, or did she live out her natural lifespan with her demon prince?
What are Dark Cousins? I don’t think that can be answered by trying to fit them into an existing mould, as we do the unfathomable. Those creatures we like to parallel are the creations of our imagination, fairy tales or mythology. I think both Dark Cousins and Gelpha are something outside our comprehension. On the other hand, did a spark ignite our imagination? We change with the times, Gia said when I pointed out Dark Cousins don’t look like the figures etched on Nagka’s walls, which could mean they once did. If the ancient Celts spoke of The Land Beneath the Waves, which Royal says is another name for Bel-Athaer, maybe they saw the inhabitants. Perhaps, over the centuries, people all over the world have seen the Gelpha and Dark Cousins, looked at those pointed teeth and came up with a nasty reason for them. Dark Cousins and Gelpha could be the myth from which we spin our fantasies.
“Rumors in the Gelpha community: the Dark Cousins went back to
Myanmar with Jacob,” Royal told me.
Good, I thought. I don’t want things like them in my town. I am sure of one thing: I never want to meet them again. Since Mac has been with me, Gia Sabato is the only thing to put fear into the heart of my dog. Dogs are smarter than us, they recognize evil.
About the Author
Linda Welch was born in Hampshire, England. She lived in Idaho, California and New Mexico before settling in Utah. She now lives in a mountain valley, more or less halfway up the mountainside, with her husband and Scottish terrier Duncan. She is not tall and silver-haired and she does not see dead people. What she does see are moose, deer, fox, raccoon, skunk, wild turkey, a huge bird population and a ridiculous amount of snow. When not writing and depending on the season, she is usually walking Duncan, filling the bird feeders, futilely attacking the weeds in her garden or shoveling out after a snowstorm. The Demon Hunters is the second book of her Whisperings series.
Linda is hard at work on Whisperings book three: Dead Demon Walking.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapt er Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chap ter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty- Five
Chapter Twenty- Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue