Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons Read online

  I knew the answer before he nodded. “A small human woman? Yes.”

  “What?” Carrie piped. She leaned forward. “What are you talking about?”

  I knew our discussion would rouse Carrie’s curiosity, but Royal was in no mood to accept ‘let’s talk about this when a shade’s not in the backseat listening,’ so I caught her eyes in the rearview mirror and said, “Later.”

  “But some drugs make people crazy and extraordinarily strong,” I said to Royal.

  “The odd DNA. Your DNA has never been tested, has it,” he stated. “Neither has mine.”

  The sinking feeling got worse. Gelpha DNA was different? Mine was different?

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” You’d think he’d have mentioned something this important before now.

  “I did not think of it.”

  “You mean to say no Gelpha has ever had DNA samples taken?”

  “They have, but the results are filed away as anomalies. Forensic science is not exact, there are too many variables.”

  “Surely, with enough of it on record, a connection will be made one of these days.”

  His hands eased on the wheel, but he looked tired. “I do not doubt it.”

  “And then the Fringe division descends on us?”

  He loosed a mirthless chuckle. “You think our government does not already have a Fringe division?”

  My eyes widened. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

  “I’m not.” His looked in the rearview mirror and indicated right. “Although I expect there are many government departments of which the public knows nothing.”

  “You two are driving me potty!” Carrie exclaimed.

  A silent minute stretched to two.

  “It could have been an incredibly strong human being,” I commented, although I knew it was wishful thinking.

  “I’m sure you are right. A strong human, and the DNA was contaminated,” Royal said, sounding far from positive.

  I wished I had not made him tell me. Crap. Crap crap crap. I thought I was done with Gelpha and their machinations. Why did they kill Lynn?

  “I think a man is trapped inside the amusement park,” Carrie said suddenly.

  I looked up from my folded hands. “Huh?”

  “You said it’s closed, and I can see it is, but look at him. He’s trying to get out. They must have shut him in.”

  I looked east from beneath lowered brows. Lagoon stretched alongside the highway and back to the mountain benches, the huge rides stationary and empty. The big south gate gave access to deliveries and fun-seekers who drove their motor homes or trailers to the park. The man who clung to the gate’s upright bars with his face pressed between them was hard to see from this distance, but I knew him.

  “It’s Toby Shiver. He chose the wrong time to call off his engagement. They were on the old Ferris Wheel when his fiancé pushed him off. Poor Toby dived two hundred sixty-four feet onto concrete.”

  “Oh!” Carrie pressed her face to the glass. “He’s dead? I can’t tell from here.”

  I couldn’t either. I identify the dead from their frozen expressions, and their whispering voices if they speak, but have to be nearer to them than several hundred feet.

  We got a better look at Toby as the Interstate angled toward the mountains. “He doesn’t look as if he fell that far,” Carrie remarked.

  “Yeah, well, some of them look okay on the outside, but their internal organs rupture.”

  “Ugh.”

  “Pretty much a puddle of goo in there.”

  “Shut up, you! You’re lucky I can’t be sick.”

  I grinned. But a moment later my thoughts were back with Lynn and how she became involved with Gelpha, and the problem of tracking down a demon killer.

  Carrie ripped me back to the present again. “What happened to her?”

  “Her?”

  “The girlfriend.”

  I crossed my arms and tried to rub warmth into them. “She got life, but you know how that goes. She’ll be up for parole next year.”

  “I wonder how long I have.” She watched Toby disappear behind us. “Alfonso must still be alive, or I wouldn’t be here, would I. Not that I dwell on it, but when I remember him and that my time is limited, that’s when I get the urge to travel while I can.”

  “You’d be in your mid-sixties were you still alive and Alfonso’s half your age. If he lasts into old age, you’ve got years yet to worry about the afterlife.” Alfonso was, briefly, Carrie’s mad fling. She died when he dropped a faulty electric hairdryer in the puddle in which she stood. I thought he killed her for her money; Carrie declared it an accident.

  Carrie sounded subdued, her voice a low whisper. “What happens when we pass over?”

  “Beats me.” I had seen a few shades go on their way, but that didn’t tell me how it worked.

  “Is there really a tunnel with a bright light at the end?”

  My voice rose a tad. “I don’t know! You can ask Jack and Mel.”

  “Them?”

  “They chose to stay here when the time came.” I rested my skull on the headrest and closed my eyes.

  Carrie leaned in again. “What do you mean?” then flopped back. “The people who killed them are dead, aren’t they? How could they decide to stay here? You mean to say we get an option?”

  “Ask them,” I reiterated. With so much else on my mind, I’d had enough of Carrie’s questions.

  Royal watched the road, but I knew that expression. Calm on the outside, intense concentration, seething inside.

  “What now?” I asked, and when he didn’t reply, “Royal?”

  “You’re talking to me?” he said in clipped tones.

  “Yes, I’m talking to you.” Then I bit my tongue before I snapped his head off.

  “I will go to the High House and ask if they have heard anything, although I doubt they have.”

  “Guess it’s worth a try.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  I thought of the High House and as always of the man who called me niece. The two were indelibly linked in my mind, along with Dark Cousins and whether they would ever intrude in my life again.

  When I think of my uncle, I see a man-shaped tower of writhing white flame. I see black-clad figures slaughtering innocent villagers, and the lost heir in a small, dank, drafty cell. I see a beautiful demon with silvery-gray hair dangling in chains from the ceiling in a cell crusted with old blood. I see my uncle Cicero, aka Orcus, the Burning Man, lying at my feet, clutching his knee where my bullet shattered it.

  A pathetic excuse for a man, Cicero fooled an entire race into believing he was all-powerful, omniscient, as his predecessors did for generations. I can’t blame a nation mired in tradition for not seeing through him.

  “No. Not this time.”

  He nodded abruptly. “I will drop you off and go there directly. I do not know how long I will be away.”

  My thoughts drifted to people in my world, in the fields of politics and religion, who’d fooled millions since medieval times.

  Sun bounced off cars to sporadically dazzle me. I looked at the mountains and the new color on them. It had been a long, hot, dry summer, and I enjoyed the cooler temperatures of October, but they were warmer than normal. A drought would be declared unless we had a good winter.

  We were in Clarion before I knew it.

  Carrie and I walked in the kitchen to the usual refrain. “What happened?”

  “Gee, sure would be pleasant if the greeting varied a little. Like, how you doing today, Tiff?”

  “How are you, Tiff? What happened?” Mel asked in a voice tinged with sarcasm.

  I headed for the table, but changed my mind halfway there. “Why don’t you ask Carrie? She has the inside scoop.”

  “I was there, I saw and heard it all,” Carrie preened.

  And just like that they were with her. Carrie took her time seating herself at the table. Jack and Mel were either side of her as I went back to the hall.

  “And
you can tell me about these wotsits. Gelphas? Since madam over there won’t,” Carrie said.

  At least I escaped that recitation, although God only knew what Mel and Jack would tell her.

  I went upstairs. Mac stayed at the bottom. “No!” I told him. “You can wait till supper.”

  Sat at my desk, I read Lynn’s notes again. I already spoke to Polly and Terry, what about the third member of the love triangle, if it could be called that? Terry’s wife, Olivia. Did Lynn speak to her?

  She had no reason to. Most of Lynn’s cases were for private parties. If she worked for the police, it went only as far as to tell them what she learned from a shade. She didn’t follow up. She reported, and left it at that. She did exactly that with this case.

  Curious, I booted up Snoopy and found a few news stories. Olivia was at the Republican Party’s temporary base of operations in Portland on the day she killed Terry and Polly. In fact, her coworkers thought she was hard at work in the back room when she slipped out of a side door, bicycled three blocks and shot her husband and his lover at the Economy Lodge. Her coworkers were shocked; they liked and admired her for her upbeat personality and dedication.

  Lynn stayed on in Portland the day after she spoke to Terry and Polly. Why?

  I rotated my shoulders and rubbed the back of my neck. RP became a refrain running endlessly through my mind. Odd, that Lynn didn’t put a full name, time or location in her appointment book for this particular meeting.

  “So you didn’t see a white light, or a tunnel?” Carrie asked Jack as I reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Jack twitched his shoulders. “Not a thing. Apart from finding old Fred Coleman dead on the floor, it was just another day.”

  I entered the kitchen with Mac glued to my heels. “You didn’t feel anything odd, something tugging at you?” I asked, intrigued.

  “No,” Mel answered.

  “A voice calling, a weird sensation?” Carrie added.

  “Must I repeat myself?” Jack snapped.

  My roommates’ words circled in my mind. I can’t speak for what a shade feels, sees or hears when they pass, but they realize something is happening. I pictured Brenda the bag-lady, how her once frozen face became mobile, and she wept. From her expression, she wept from joy.

  Sylvia and Paul Norton. Peter Cooper. Brenda Lithgow. The white glow which emanated from them. Their blissful expressions. The tears in their eyes.

  Seeing shades was still a fairly new experience when I moved to my house and met Jack and Mel. I delved into the circumstances of their death, but most of what I knew came from them. They told me how they died and I didn’t think to question it. They said they decided to stay here. I didn’t question that either.

  Frederick Coleman waylaid Jack first. He threatened him with a gun while he tied Jack’s hands, gagged him with masking tape and covered his head. Coleman pushed him in a car and bound his ankles, and they drove for a while. Jack heard a garage door close. He sat in the car for hours, I think because it was still day and Coleman waited for darkness to take Jack in the house. He died in the basement. Jack does not remember a blow, and indeed, his body as I see it bears no evidence of bruising, abrasions or wounds. He didn’t lay eyes on Coleman again after their initial meeting, and thinks he was awake only a few hours until he died. Jack remembers a sting in the area of his spine, which made me wonder if Coleman killed him with a lethal injection. He felt no pain. He went to sleep again and woke in the basement looking at his dead body.

  Coleman used a jackhammer to break up the concrete floor, then dug down into the dirt. I expect making that last resting place for Jack’s body took a good long time, then he had to refinish the basement floor.

  In a near-identical abduction and murder, Coleman got Mel four years later. Coleman dug up his basement again.

  Unfortunately, the cause of death will never be known unless I dig up their bodies and have them autopsied, which would make life awkward for me to say the least.

  Did I … did all three of us make assumptions? I told them they should have passed over when Coleman died and assumed they had a choice when they said they’d decided not to.

  “When Mel turned up, I felt … responsible to show her the ropes,” Jack was telling Carrie.

  “You did?” Mel asked.

  “And death wasn’t so boring,” Jack continued. “When we found the old bastard on the floor, well, we had a discussion. You remember, Mel?”

  “Yeah. We wondered what would happen on the other side. If there’d be TV and stuff or if we’d sit on clouds wearing white dresses and playing harps all day.”

  “We didn’t want to take the chance, so we decided not to go.”

  I didn’t think so. My heart did the little fluttery thing it does when something comes to me out of the blue.

  The dead never forget the face of their killer - if they see it. Someone killed Jack and Mel in my basement, but that person may not have been Coleman. Did nothing come for Jack and Mel because their killer still lived?

  Chapter Nine

  “I’d never have guessed, not in a million years,” Carrie said.

  I poured chunky bean and ham soup from the pan into a bowl. “Kind of blows your mind.”

  “I did wonder, because he looks different, all shimmery metallic, but you don’t. You’re quite normal.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “For a giantess.”

  Jack and Mel had told Carrie about me and Royal. But Jack and Mel didn’t know everything, only what I told them, and Carrie had plagued me with questions - some of which I actually answered - since I came downstairs.

  It was better done without Royal here.

  I found a soup spoon and took my bowl to the table. Carrie seemed to have run out of steam, or was gathering her thoughts for another assault.

  “Tiff, will you need me again?” she asked.

  I slurped a mouthful of soup, chewed and swallowed. “Need you how?”

  “Well, listening in on the police was exciting, and I’ll do it again in a jiffy. But will you need me, because I’ll be on my way if you don’t. As much as I enjoyed seeing you again, it’s my holiday, I want to see more of America before I leave.”

  I leaned back in the chair and regarded Carrie. Would I need her again? Maybe, maybe not. An invisible spy was a massive advantage, but asking her to stay in case? And although she and my roommates were getting along better, I expected more flare-ups. Any little thing could set off Jack and Mel.

  I smiled. “I don’t think so, Carrie. And I’m sorry I’m not much of a hostess.”

  “Quiet all right, dear. I understand.” She went toward Jack and Mel, who occupied their favorite position in front of the television, looked over their shoulders at the screen, then returned to me. “There’ll be another time. You did say you’ll be back in England for the trial?”

  Patty Norton resided in Her Majesty’s care and prosecutors were pushing for a trial early next year. Royal and I would be called as witnesses.

  “It should be early next year.”

  “And you’ll come to Little Barrow?”

  I thought about it. I’d promised Carrie we would do some touring when I returned to England, and I do not break promises, but I didn’t want to lodge in Little Barrow and speak to Sally and Greg Short again. “I’ll be by to let you know we’re in England. We can work something out from there.”

  “Lovely. Well, can you take me to the station when you get a minute?”

  “Um, I guess so. You want to go now?”

  “Might as well.”

  Just like that? This felt strange. If she were a living visitor, she’d have reserved a flight and be packing her bags. I would be watching the clock to make sure I got her to the airport or station in good time. I looked at my soup; it was cold. “Okay. Give me a minute to put these in the dishwasher.”

  Carrie ambled over to Jack and Mel as I took my bowl to the trash can and scraped it, shadowed by an ever-hopeful Mac.

  “I’m off the
n,” Carrie said. “We’ve had our ups and downs, heh, but I did enjoy talking to other substantials.”

  Jack looked over his shoulder. “You’re leaving, for good?”

  “It’s time.”

  Mel wriggled uncomfortably. “Back home?”

  “Not straight away. I’ll see a bit more of the United States.”

  I rinsed the bowl, spoon and pan under hot running water and loaded them in the dishwasher.

  Jack gestured with his hand. “Well, have a jolly good trip and all that.” His attempt at an English accent failed miserably.

  “Yes, ta ta,” came from Mel.

  Carrie leaned over them. “Remember what I told you.”

  “We can’t,” Jack grumped.

  Carrie straightened up. “Don’t know until you’ve tried.”

  I wandered over there. “Tried what?”

  “Mind their Ps and Qs and act like grownups,” Carrie said quickly as she twisted on her heels.

  “Hey!” Mel protested.

  “Don’t bother,” Jack told her.

  I squinted at them. Something here didn’t ring true.

  “Are we ready then?” Carrie prompted.

  “I guess so.” Still, I hesitated, do you have everything? on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to slap myself.

  I didn’t accompany Carrie inside the station. I could see myself slipping up and speaking to her as people watched.

  “Again, I’m sorry I blew you off so much.”

  “Forget it, love,” she said from the passenger seat. “Bad timing, I suppose. But I’ll see you next year.”

  I opened the door and got out. We stood on the sidewalk for a moment, then I nodded at the wide path where commuters headed for the ticket office and waiting room. “This is it then.”

  “It’s a beautiful building.”

  I’ve always admired the station, a long, low place of pale brick and intricate stonework. “Yeah. I like Art Deco. There’s quite a few like this in Clarion. Where will you go?”

  She shrugged. “To the airport and see where it takes me.”

  “I’d drive you, but - ”

  “You have business to deal with,” she cut in. “Shall we go? We both hate good-byes.”

  She walked with me, passing couples, families, single travelers. And she was gone in a blink, attached to two good-looking young men who wore suits and ties and carried briefcases. Her short, overly curvaceous figure swayed along. She walked backward and waved before she went through the main entrance.