by Ivy Sinclair
“Slight hallucinatory side effect to the medicine I gave you,” the man said as he saw my confusion. “Don’t worry. It’s pleasant enough and masks the pain of healing.”
“Sounds like a lot of hocus pocus,” I said, wagging my finger at him. “You can’t just save my life and then whisk me off into the sunset. I don’t even know your name.”
He looked chagrined, and that made me laugh again.
“My name is Riley,” he said finally. “Riley Stone.”
CHAPTER THREE - RILEY
I didn’t need a photograph to confirm that this was the woman who the demons were looking for. The irony that she basically appeared at my feet wasn’t lost on me, and my suspicions were on red alert. Something was afoot on Calamata Island, and I was afraid that I was being dragged into it. Me and demons didn’t mix at all after…well, after I realized that the world was much different than the fairy tale bedtime stories my parents used to tell me when I was a kid.
I used more of the Morlon root than I should have, but even in the moonlight I could tell that the bite on her shoulder was bad. Mortal wound bad, and I wasn’t about to take her to an emergency room after what happened. That’s the first place the demon’s master would look for her.
It was actually a brilliant strategy. After the initial attack, if the demon couldn’t spirit the target away immediately, it was a given that the target would seek medical attention. Like a good dog, the demon returned to its master and gave the location of the attack. Then it was just a matter of zeroing in on the closest hospitals.
I wasn’t kidding when I told her the side effects of the drug. It would heal her, though not as quickly as I’d like, but in the meantime, she was going to experience a high like she’d likely never felt before. Morlon root could only be found on the black market these days, and was insanely expensive because the demon community started using it less for its medicinal qualities and more as a way to get a fix. And if something could send a demon flying high, then the effect on humans was exponentially more pronounced.
I wanted to ask her questions, like why the demons were after her, but her initial confusion about the attack and look of shock when I mentioned demons told me that she was a civilian. No knowledge of the ugly underbelly that prowled the world beside hers. I envied people like that sometimes. It had been a long time since I had the luxury of that kind of innocence. Unfortunately for the woman, hers was about to go away as well.
Still, asking questions and ferreting out answers regardless of her physical or emotional state was part of my job. I was damn good at it. You just needed to know the right approach depending on the person, or thing, you were interrogating.
I decided to start my line of questioning with the simple stuff and hopefully build a thin layer of trust. People, especially humans, opened up quickly to others that they trusted. “So you know my name. What’s yours?”
Her eyes swung toward mine. Her pupils were dilated and glassy. She was deep into the throes of the effects of the drug. “Paige. Or at least, that’s what I call myself these days.”
It was a strange answer that only encouraged more questions in my mind. I made a mental note to come back to it. “Nice to meet you, Paige. I wish it were under better circumstances.”
That, as much, was true. Paige’s lean, athletic body, long blonde hair, and baby blue eyes were on the money for the type of woman that drew my attention like a beacon. Her full pouty lips begged for me to reach out my thumb and caress them. Even with the dirt, dust, and blood covering her, she looked like a blue-eyed angel.
I cursed myself for being so indifferent to the current situation even as I shifted in my seat from the sudden tightness in my jeans. Clearly I’d been out of the game too long. Work was my sole focus these days, and I had forgotten how liberated I felt after a simple roll in the hay.
“Are you taking me to the hospital? I think I’m hurt pretty bad,” she replied.
“Not as bad as you think. You just need a little rest,” I said. “Why were you in the graveyard tonight, Paige?” Given that she was human, my assumption was that she was a Wiccan. They often held their ceremonies in cemeteries to bolster their spells with the energy of soil. Dead bodies still emanated quite a bit of mystical juice.
“Running,” she said. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Another perplexing answer that made no sense. Demons didn’t hunt and attack regular humans for no reason. Then I corrected myself. Demons didn’t hunt and attack regular humans at all on Calamata Island. On the mainland, one would occasionally step out of line and feed on a human, but that was usually squashed quickly. It wasn’t good for anyone to have the humans be aware of the paranormal minions that walked in their midst.
There was a reason that the demons were showing up en masse and looking for her. I just had to figure out that reason, and then decide if there was any financial benefit for me in it. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of getting involved in a demon matter, but if Paige was important to them, that could be highly profitable intel.
“You lived on Calamata Island for long?” Another benign question, but its answer would tell me a lot. Calamata Island had been declared a demon free zone over a decade ago. That meant that anyone who was trying to escape from a run-in with the demons or other nasty creatures from the Underworld usually ended up there at one point or another. I was able to conduct my business on a special permit authorized by Benjamin’s second-in-command, Sheriff Halpren, who was also my client. It wasn’t good for the ‘tourist’ business if it got out that demons had once again infiltrated Calamata’s population.
“Three years,” Paige said.
“And before that?” I pressed.
Her forehead crinkled. “Before that what?”
I told myself to slow down. She wasn’t going anywhere, and I wasn’t even sure I could trust the quality of any of her answers with the amount of Morlon root in her bloodstream.
“Where did you live before coming to Calamata?”
She frowned and looked away. “Park Ridge General Hospital.”
I wasn’t getting anywhere, and it was frustrating. The motel that I was staying at appeared on my left, and I swung the SUV into the parking lot. Even though it was the middle of the night, the lot was almost empty. I guided the truck to the back of the lot and slid into the space next to the last room furthest from the office. In my line of work, it’s better to fly under the radar as much as possible.
“This isn’t the emergency room,” Paige said, as she stared out the windshield.
“I’ll tell you what, Paige. If you don’t feel better in a couple of hours, I’ll take you to the emergency room. Right now, you just need to get some sleep.” I tried to make my voice as soothing as possible. If she started to panic, or worse yet, scream at the top of her lungs that she was being kidnapped, someone would surely hear her. This was the main reason I liked conducting my interrogations in remote, secluded places.
I quickly got out of the SUV, grabbed my bag out of the back, and hurried to her side. She already had the door open and was trying to get out. I was impressed. The amount of Morlon root I gave her should have knocked her out cold, but she was still reasonably coherent and mobile. As long as we kept any hallucinations to a minimum, we might be okay until I could figure out what to do with her.
I leaned into the SUV and was pleased that she didn’t cower or try to push me away. I scooped my arm around her back and gently pulled her out of the truck and ensured that her feet were on the ground before reaching back to shut the door.
“I don’t even know you,” she said, as she stumbled next to me up to the door of my room.
“Sure you do. I’m Riley, remember?” We could sort out the formalities of that lie later. Right now, I just wanted to get her inside the room and out of the line of sight of any prying eyes.
I unlocked the door and pushed it open. Then I pulled her inside and pointed at the bed. “I told you that you needed rest to feel better. See? I brought you to a bed.”
I chuckled. The woman had spunk, no doubt about it. “Think about it, Paige. If I were going to kill you, I would have done that already.”
Her eyes were already closing as she nodded, and I just made it back to her side in time to catch her on her unceremonious slide downward to the carpet. I pulled her up into my arms, and was surprised when she wrapped her arms around my neck. I crossed the room and settled her onto one of the two queen beds. As I shuffled the covers up around her, I did a quick check of the bite on her shoulder. It was still bleeding, but the flow had definitely slowed. Luckily I carried industrial strength cleaner and several pairs of sheets on these kinds of runs. You never knew when an interrogation might go south and you’d end up with something resembling a homicide scene. Contrary to popular belief, apparitions could bleed. It was much better to be prepared.
Paige didn’t even stir as I tucked the covers around her. I stared down at her and couldn’t help but shake my head. Things had just gotten a hell of a lot more complicated for me on Calamata Island.
CHAPTER FOUR- PAIGE
I woke up feeling like I had the world’s worst hangover. I didn’t recall drinking a drop of liquor in six months, so as I opened my eyes I had no idea what to expect. It certainly wasn’t the view of a half-naked man sleeping upright in a chair across the room. I sat up with a start and groaned as I felt a bolt of pain in my temple.
The man was awake and across the room in an instant, and I couldn’t help but think I’d never seen anyone move that fast in my life. “How do you feel?” he asked, peering at me with the loveliest green eyes I’d ever seen.
Then it all hit me. The nightmares. The cemetery. The flame-eyed shadow. My hand found my shoulder, and I winced as I took in the blood-drenched cloth. “Like I’ve been run over by a mac truck. Why didn’t you take me to the emergency room?”
The man, I remembered in a flash that his name was Riley, gently pushed my hand away and unwrapped the binding holding the cloth against my shoulder. He pulled the cloth away. “Almost good as new,” he pronounced.
I looked down at my shoulder in shock. I distinctly remembered seeing the shreds of my skin and the pouring blood from the bite made by the thing that attacked me. But Riley was right. There were still four noticeable marks on my skin, but they were scabbed over and no longer bleeding.
“What the hell?” I exclaimed as I gingerly started to touch them.
Riley batted my fingers away. “Now that you’re awake, let’s get this cleaned up better. I don’t want to risk any infection. You’re a bit of a mess.”
I felt a flash of anger. I was attacked and mauled by something that I couldn’t even begin to explain, and he wanted me to look like I was ready for a night on the town or something? “Point me in the direction of the bathroom, please.” Then I looked around the room. “And can I ask where the hell I am right now?”
“You’re in my room at the Carlyle Motel. I brought you here because you basically passed out after the attack, and you weren’t carrying any ID.”
“I think I’d like to leave,” I said.
“How about you get cleaned up and we talk first?” Riley said as he stepped away from me. “The bathroom is right there. Take all the time you need.”
I slid over to the other side of the bed to stand up. I wasn’t sure who Riley was or what he had done to me to make the bite heal so quickly. I remembered he mentioned something about demons. It was possible that he was crazy. Or a serial killer. Or both.
As if he sensed my thoughts, a small smile crossed his face. He held up his hands. “I’m not going to hurt you. I only wanted to help. You saw something…unusual. It would probably help to talk about it with someone who will believe everything you say you saw, don’t you think?”
I considered his words. Then I pictured walking up to Christopher and telling him that I was attacked and bitten by a flame-eyed shadow in the middle of a cemetery. I had to admit that the guy had a point.
“Am I going to turn into a werewolf or something like that? Is this some kind of intervention?” I was only half joking.
Riley gestured toward the bathroom. “Get cleaned up. Then we’ll talk, and I’ll answer any questions you have. Deal?”
I chalked his skill at persuasion up to being hypnotized by his eyes. I couldn’t help but notice that it looked like he had pecs made of stone and an extremely well-defined six-pack. I wouldn’t be able to think straight looking at him like that, and I needed to keep my wits about me. This Riley Stone was dangerous, and I didn’t know what he wanted with me. I sure as hell didn’t believe that it was just to talk.
“On one condition,” I said.
“And that is?”
I sensed that Riley was also skilled in the art of negotiation, which made me wonder what other skills he possessed. I wanted to smack myself. I didn’t have time for this kind of distraction. “For the love of Pete, put on a goddamn shirt.” Then I turned on my heel and made my way to the bathroom.
I closed the door behind me and leaned my back against it for a moment. It wasn’t like I wasn’t used to life throwing me curveballs, but this was the first time the curveball had me questioning my sanity. I pushed off the door and took the additional two steps to the cracked, yellow vanity. The lighting in the small room was exactly what you’d expect from a seedy, one-star motel. I was surprised the dim bulb even had a fixture over it.
Then I saw myself in the mirror and wished that I could turn the light off again. Riley had been kind when he said that I looked like a mess. In all actuality, I look like death warmed over.
“Maybe I’m dead,” I said to my reflection. “That’s why everything seems so surreal. I’m dead and this is one really bad afterlife.”
The irony was that I said something similar to myself three years ago when I woke up in a hospital bed at Park Ridge General Hospital across the bay from Calamata Island. They told me some fisherman pulled me out of the water after finding me unconscious floating in the bay.
I lifted up the hair on the left side of my head. I could still make out the three-inch red-ridged scar that was visible beneath my hair. It was my memento from the accident that robbed me of my memories and any recollection of my previous life. It seemed like a cruel joke when days passed and my memory still eluded me. After a few weeks when it was clear I was on the mend, the doctors didn’t know what to do with me. I had no name, no money, and nowhere to go. The local news station even ran a story on me, but no one ever came forward and claimed me.
I let my hair drop and shook it off. I had bigger things to worry about at the moment. I wet a washcloth with cool water, and wiped my face clean. I ran my fingertips through my hair to at least try to remove some of the snarls. Then I wet a larger towel and took off my clothes. My arms and legs were scraped to hell and there was still some gravel inside the cuts and scratches. Just getting the dirt off my body made me feel better though.
That brought me to my shoulder. The white towel soon turned red as I gingerly wiped away the blood and grime gathered there. I swiveled it in its socket as I looked it over carefully. It was tight and a little sore, but it looked better than it did even five minutes ago. The scabs came off as I rolled the towel over them exposing new pink skin underneath, although there were four obvious puncture wounds still visible.
I tried to remember what medicine Riley said he put on the bite, but the name of it escaped me. I had been in the throes of delirium.
“He saved my life,” I whispered. I didn’t understand where he came from or why he had, but nonetheless, he did. He chased the thing that attacked me away, and he gave me a medicine that brought me back from death’s doorstep. Still, it was obvious that he knew what had attacked me, which also meant he might know why it did and why it would still track me afterwards. I had a feeling I was scratching the surface of some ugly truths that I really didn’t wa
nt to know.
I put my clothes back on and sat down on the edge of the tub. I wondered if there was some way that I could pretend that the attack never happened. I could ask Riley to take me home or I could walk there. The Carlyle Motel was only a few miles from my apartment. I’d call Christopher to come and pick me up, but that would raise too many questions, and would negate the point of trying to explain the whole thing rationally away.
There was a tiny window inside the shower, but there was no way I was getting through it. That meant that the only way out was through the man who waited for me on the other side of the door. I couldn’t deny that I was curious about him.
Who was Riley Stone? Was he truly my savior, or was his appearance in my life a harbinger of doom? I’d already lost everything once. I felt like I finally had a grip on life. It seemed terribly unfair that something arrived in my world and was taking that away from me again.
I decided then that I didn’t want to have anything to do with whatever it was that Riley represented. This time, I was going to give fate and life the big middle finger.
CHAPTER SIX - RILEY
Paige surprised me. It had been a long time since that had happened. Most women I knew would have been puddles of fear after what happened with the Tiphon demon. Being a human aware of and in the demon world was difficult. I knew that better than anyone. That was a big reason why I swore an oath to myself that I would never settle down. It wasn’t fair to bring a woman into a world full of violence and death. The fact that I had managed to survive as long as I had was due to the fact that I had someone older and wiser take me under her wing and show me the ropes when I first entered this dangerous world.
Necromancers were a rare breed in the demon world, mostly because the demons often made it a point to kill them off. It was almost amusing that demons would find such disdain for my kind of talents. If I hadn’t managed to make myself useful, I have no doubt I would have disappeared long ago.