Demon Mistress (Page 31)

“Hmm,” Delilah said. “Where can we buy one of those for our home? If we could get one that encompassed the entire property . . .”

“You’d pay an arm and a leg. He has to have it reinforced on a monthly basis, and believe me, his witch ain’t cheap,” Vanzir said. “And her magic works. Every time.” He winked at Camille, but it still sounded like a slam.

Camille arched one eyebrow. “Ease it back, dream boy. A tad bit passive-aggressive, you think?”

He stared at her for a moment, then sniggered. “You’re good. You catch on quick.” He thumbed toward the door. “Let’s go.”

Vanzir led us down the stairs and knocked four times on the door. After a moment, a small click echoed through the air as the door swung open. We followed the demon inside.

I’d never been in a demon’s lair before and wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but whatever my preconceptions were, they weren’t what Carter had going on. The room was large, with several doors leading back into the rest of the apartment. It was dark; the windows that lined the top of the wall were blacked out. No wonder I hadn’t noticed them as we headed down the stairs.

A mellow glow from a dim lamp set off the gold and red upholstery that covered the sofa and wing chair. The coffee and end tables were rich walnut, and the furniture had the same feel as the furnishings in older vampires’ lairs. Most of it looked decades old. I had the feeling Carter had been over Earthside for a long, long time, at least by human reckoning.

The walls were covered with tapestries that depicted wars and battle scenes, and one entire wall was taken up with bookshelves that were filled from top to bottom with books of all shapes and sizes. Our demon was literate, that much was clear.

A desk sat to the right of a side door, facing so that its occupant could see when anybody entered or left the building. And behind the desk—also dark walnut—sat an unassuming man who looked to be in his early thirties. He had wavy hair the same color as mine, and his eyes were like Vanzir’s, a whirl of colors that were impossible to name. Only this demon had two spiked horns curling out of his head, one on each side, reminding me of those on an impala, curved back, regal, and polished to a high sheen. He was meticulously groomed, even though his hair looked messy at first glance. But it was a deliberate mess, no doubt held in place by plenty of hair spray.

As he stood and walked around the side of the desk, I saw that he was using a cane. His right knee was in a brace. “Welcome. I assume Vanzir has told you that I’m Carter.” Sweeping his arm graciously, he motioned to the sofa. “Won’t you have a seat, please?”

Carter was wearing a burgundy smoking jacket over a pair of spotless black trousers. We were dressed in blood, dirt, and, no doubt, ghoul innards. “Are you sure? We might accidentally stain your upholstery.”

He laughed, his voice musical. “Don’t worry about it. I have the cleaners in every month or two. I receive a number of guests who don’t even understand the concept of taking a shower.”

We settled onto the sofa and chairs that were spread throughout the room, and Carter snapped his fingers. A lovely young woman, delicate and thin and possibly part Chinese, slipped into the room. She waited silently.

“Kim, bring us some tea, please. And,” he glanced at me, “a goblet of warmed blood.” When I started to protest, he waved me down. “Nonsense. My hospitality will never be called into question. Not while I’m alive.”

He slid into the chair nearest me and leaned back, resting his cane against the arm of the wooden frame. “Vanzir leads me to believe you’re facing a Karsetii demon.” He sounded almost eager.

I glanced at the others. Camille gave me a slight nod. “Yeah. We drove off the hive mother, but I don’t trust that she’s gone for good. We think we know who’s summoning her, though, and we’re wondering if you might have any records indicating demonic activity around a certain area of Seattle going back, oh—say one hundred years or so?”

Carter gazed in my eyes. He looked old behind that youngish face, and a little bit tired. “I arrived here when Seattle was young. I came in from the East Coast and started a printing company. Ran a couple of the very first newspapers in town, then decided to fade away and reinvent myself as someone new. Naturally, the populace wouldn’t have looked too kindly on me if they’d found out I was a demon.”

“Then you’ve been here for a long time,” I said. Carter fascinated me. I knew he was Demonkin, but he didn’t feel like any other demon I’d ever met—Vanzir and Rozurial included. I wondered just what type he was, but it seemed rude to ask.

“Yes, I’ve watched the city grow and evolve. My company was located in the Seattle Underground before she was underground.” Carter flashed me a dazzling smile. Good teeth, that was for sure. “I’m able to cloak my horns when I know a stranger’s coming, but I generally don’t speak to many people and have since then grown used to a life of solitude.”

“What do you do now to support yourself?” Morio leaned back, eying Carter closely. I watched the fox demon; he seemed wary but not closed off. Morio had good instincts, and I trusted them.

“I run an Internet research business. I’m a virtual research assistant for a number of college professors and scientists. I make a good wage that more than pays my bills. No one bothers me.”

Just then, the lovely Kim returned, bearing a tray filled with cups, saucers, and a pot of tea. She had remembered to add a goblet of blood, and I accepted it rather self-consciously. I didn’t really like drinking in front of others because I knew it made some people queasy, but I didn’t want to appear churlish. I sniffed at the blood. Fresh. My fangs began to extend as the hunger in my stomach grew, and I quickly took a sip, forcing myself to center again.

As Kim handed out the teacups, I watched Carter watch her. At first, I’d thought she was his maid, but there was more going on there than just a master-servant relationship. He was gentle when he spoke with her, and gracious, even though his manner was quietly imperative.

As she finished, he said, “Thank you. Go to bed now and sleep safe.”

She ducked her head to him, then just as silently backed out of the room. I cocked my head, curious.

“You wonder what she’s doing here, don’t you?” Carter said.

Startled, I nodded. “Yeah, actually. She’s human?”

“Human, yes, but only half. Her mother was a demon—a succubus, but a weak one. Her father was human. Kim’s mother had no use for the child and was in the process of selling her on the open market when I happened to notice. Kim is twenty-two now, so this was . . . oh . . . twenty-one years ago or so. Several of the demons bidding for her were . . . distasteful. I knew she’d have a short, miserable life with them, so I outbid them, bought her, and brought her here.”

Everyone stared at him. Morio was nodding. Camille and Delilah both looked a little shocked. Rozurial just listened.

“Were you planning on keeping her?” I asked.

“No, not really.” He shook his head. “At first I was planning to leave her on the doorstep of a church, but then I realized that her half-demon nature would doom her if they tried to bring her up human. She’d either end up in a mental institution or she’d end up in jail. So I hired a nanny and brought her up myself. I look on her like she’s my own daughter. Kim is mute; she’s never spoken a word, and we don’t know why. The healer I engaged thinks it might be some genetic mutation that occurred from her mixed parentage. She knows sign language, though, and she can hear without a problem. I keep encouraging her to go away to college, but she prefers to stay home and take care of the apartment.”

Kim looked old enough to be his wife, but if he harbored such thoughts about her, they weren’t apparent.

“What area do you want information about? The city as a whole, or one specific neighborhood?” Carter finished his tea and rose, crossing to the bookshelf where he pored through titles until he found a large leather-bound book. He opened it, setting it on the coffee table. The book was an atlas, filled with holograms. Maps of the city. Magical, no doubt.

I gave him the cross streets nearest Harold’s house. That was as much as Carter needed to know for the moment. He seemed on the up-and-up, though I wondered why he’d chosen to live Earthside, and why for so long, but you never knew. With demons, you just couldn’t take unnecessary risks.

Carter glanced at the map, tracing routes with his fingertip. Then he stopped, looked at the page with a peculiar frown, and limped over to a filing cabinet that stood next to his desk. He shuffled through a thick row of neatly lined files, withdrew a folder, and carried it back to his chair. He handed it to me.

“I think this might contain the information you’re looking for,” he said, pressing his lips together grimly. “I have the feeling you’re looking for a particular name, and you’re likely to find it in there.”

As I spread the file folder on my knees and opened it, Camille and Delilah peered over my shoulders. The folder was filled with neatly typed reports, old newspaper clippings—some from the Seattle Tattler, I noticed—and a few scattered photographs. I began to shuffle through the pages.

Two pictures of what looked like a red-eyed, horned troll rustling through what appeared to be a corner park. A blurry photograph that looked reminiscent of the ghouls we’d met in the cemetery, only they were crossing through a backyard, and—hello? What was this? A picture of Harold’s house, complete with a dark cloud overhead. Only that cloud was no cloud. It was some sort of demonic haze. Even though the picture was dated as being taken twenty years ago, I could still feel the aura flicker off the photograph.

I slowly handed the picture to Camille and picked up the thick sheaf of reports. As I flipped through them, I saw that they were each documented by date, address, and type of encounter. There were seven pages with Harold’s address on it, and the dates went back to around 1920. The reports ranged from mild demonic auras being sensed to a period during the 1960s where there was a surge of power spikes noted by whoever had been keeping track of this project. Which brought me to . . .

“Carter, why do you have all this? All these reports?”

His gaze flickered my way, and the mild demeanor fell away. I found myself gazing into a swirling pool of colors, falling quickly as he sucked me in. For the first time since my early days as a vampire, I found myself gasping for breath as I tried to push his energy back. It swept over me like a wave, dragging me like a riptide, compelling me to follow. I had to go to him. I stood, taking a hesitant, unwilling step forward, and then found Morio and Camille standing between the demon and me.

“Pull it in, dude, or lose it,” Camille said. “I can feel what you’re doing, and you do it again—to any of us—and you’re dead.”

“Don’t toy with me, little girl,” he said in a neutral tone. “You don’t have the power to stop me.” But the drive to obey was gone, and Carter was back to the mild-mannered demon we’d first met.

“What the fuck was that about?” I raised my hand, wanting to strike at him. The last person to force me to do anything was dust and ashes now. “I don’t like being forced. Get it? And don’t ever, ever underestimate us. We’re stronger than we look.”

Carter held up his hand. “Enough with the histrionics. I have no intention of making you do anything. I’m just answering your question. Let it be enough that I watch. I observe. I keep the records. And I fly beneath Shadow Wing’s radar. Do you understand?”

I didn’t, not fully, but what I did understand from his little display was that he wasn’t one of Shadow Wing’s puppets. No, he was a lot older than I’d first thought, and his power rivaled the strongest vampire’s I’d ever met. And yet he sat here, in a dingy apartment in a bad neighborhood of Seattle, with a foster daughter named Kim and a brace on his leg. There was far more to Carter than met the eye, but he wasn’t going to reveal his secrets easily. And for some reason, he was helping us.

I picked up the reports. “Can we get copies of these?”

He stood and held out his hand. “Give them to me.”

I handed them over, and he limped gracefully over to an all-in-one machine on his desk. As he copied the documents, I watched him, trying to figure out what the hell he was and why he was helping us. One look at Vanzir told me that if he knew, he wasn’t going to volunteer the information. We could make him tell us, and if needed, we would, but later, and only if necessary. Those with great power needed to use it wisely, or it turned into abuse. And we had the power of life and death over Vanzir.

Carter returned with a packet of papers. “Here. Take them and use them however you need to. Be cautious. Evil walks in many guises, and not all that seems evil is out to kill you. But paranoia is your best friend right now.”

Vanzir, as if heeding an unspoken comment, rose. “I think that’s all we can do here.”

“Do we have everything we need? How do we identify some of these creatures mentioned in the reports?” I flipped through them, unable to decipher half the creatures that had been reported by name.

“Do you need to know more than the fact that demon activity over that particular neighborhood has been the highest of any area in Seattle on a consistent basis for almost a hundred years? I advise you to check your missing person reports over the years and see how many women headed out for a walk in nearby neighborhoods and never made it home during those decades. Use your wits,” Carter said, standing. “Sometimes all you need to know is that something is happening, rather than the details.”