Demon Hunting In the Deep South (26 page)

Muddy’s brows shot up so far they disappeared underneath her feathered headband. “Trey put up Evie’s bail money? How . . . interesting.”

“He has been repaid with interest,” Ansgar said. “Evangeline is my responsibility.”

“I am
not
your responsibility,” Evie said, unaccountably annoyed.

Whoa, where did that come from? She knew she was overreacting, but she didn’t care. Ansgar’s responsibility, indeed! Maybe if he loved her. People in love took care of one another. But he didn’t love her. He’d had plenty of opportunity to say so tonight.
Up close and personal opportunities.
But he hadn’t. And one day—probably one day soon—he would leave and she’d be by herself again. The thought made her feel hollow and empty inside.

“I’ve been taking care of myself since I was twelve,” she said.

“Evangeline.”

She heard the warning in Ansgar’s tone. Well, he could just get over it. Demon hunters weren’t the only ones with pride.

She squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “I appreciate what you did, paying Trey back and all, but I
am
going to reimburse you. I’m going down to the bank Monday and take out a second mortgage on my house so I can pay you and Mr. Collier.”

“I’m not charging you a fee, Evie,” Mr. Collier said. “I told you that from the get-go. I don’t need the money. I’ve known you since you were knee high to a grasshopper, and I’m not about to let you get railroaded. I’m representing you ’cause I want to, so hush.”

“I do not want your money, either,” Ansgar said. “Money is of no consequence to the Dalvahni.”

“It’s of consequence to me. I won’t be in your debt w-when you leave.”

“Evangeline,” Ansgar said again. Taking her hands, he looked down at her. Oh, Lord, he had that look in his eyes again, the one that melted her insides and made her heart race. “I am not—”

“Shh,” Addy said, nodding toward the front of the room. “I think Trey’s about to say something.”

Evie turned and saw Trey up on the bandstand, somberly dressed in a dark suit and tie. He was surrounded by the clump of women she’d noticed earlier. He must have been there the whole time, covered in female drapery. They swarmed around him like bees attracted to a piece of overripe fruit. Nothing new there; Trey was tall and good looking and had more money than God. But his appeal was off the charts now that he was Available. These women were acting like maenads, frenzied by the scent of single Male. Trish Russell was flirting with him, and she was married to a doctor in Fairhope—snaked him away from his first wife.

But this was Trey Peterson of
the
Petersons, and he was a widower. It was a blood bath, and Trey didn’t stand a chance, demonoid or not.

The drunken bumblebee was buzzing around the steps to the stage. He and the mayor did a little shuffle dance before the mayor bypassed him and hefted his bulk up the steps, his white polyester jumpsuit straining at the seams. Huffing and puffing, he pushed his way through the cluster of women to the microphone. At his signal, the music wound down.

The mayor tucked Priscilla under one arm. “If I could have your attention for a moment, ladies and gentlemen, Trey Peterson has an announcement.”

Maybe her decision to come to the dance tonight wasn’t in the best of taste, Evie mused, watching Trey free himself from the tangle of women and join the mayor. She was, after all,
numero uno
on the “who murdered Meredith?” suspect list. But the women clinging to Trey like nylon panties to the top of a dryer drum were downright tacky. Muddy was right. Meredith was hardly cold, and the competition was sniffing at his heels. These chicks were darn lucky Meredith hadn’t decided to show up tonight. They’d be scraping ectoplasm off themselves for weeks.

“Thank you, Mayor Tunstall,” Trey began. “As you know, my wife—”

A smooth drawl interrupted him.

“Here, son, let me make the announcement,” Blake Peterson said, taking the mike out of Trey’s hand. “We all know what a strain you’ve been under.”

Trey’s complexion went white under his golfer’s tan. He shot Blake a startled glance and moved back. Trey seemed smaller and more vulnerable to Evie, like he’d shrunk in the past forty-eight hours. The strain was visible on his face, and he seemed sad, which was only natural given Meredith’s death. But he seemed something else, too, something Evie couldn’t quite put her finger on.

“As you know, our family has suffered a terrible loss,” Blake said. “Our dear Meredith has been taken from us, cut down in the prime of life—”

“Not the way I would have put it,” Addy said under her breath.

“—but the Peterson family will pull together and endure this tragedy, as we endured the death of Blake, Junior, lo these many years ago . . .”

“Look at Clarice,” Muddy whispered, directing Evie’s attention to a thin woman in a knee-length black dress.

Clarice stood at the bottom of the steps, rigid as marble, her gaze fixed on Blake. To Evie’s shock, Clarice’s eyes blazed with hate and something else, the same “something” revealed on Trey’s face.

Fear, Evie realized. Fear was something she knew. She’d lived with the suffocating weight of it most of her life. Fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, of disappointing those she loved or of hurting them. This went way beyond that. Trey was terrified of his grandfather, and Clarice Peterson hated and feared her husband. The Petersons were one big unhappy family.

She returned her attention to Blake.

“. . . are making a sizable donation in Meredith’s name,” he said, “to provide some much needed renovation to Hannah High, Meredith’s beloved alma mater. Never fear, Meredith’s memory will live on.”

Nodding to the mayor and the clapping audience, Blake started toward the steps. He was polished and urbane, but there was something about him that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

On impulse, Evie grabbed Mr. Collier by the arm. “Mr. C, point your contrabulator at Blake Peterson. Quick, before he gets off the stage and into the crowd.”

Mr. Collier complied. The contrabulator glowed with a sullen orange light and began to vibrate and whine.

“We got ourselves a big one,” Mr. Collier cried, hanging on to the shimmying contrabulator with the excited glee of an angler reeling in a wily bass. “This is the real thing. Pure, undiluted e-vil. Hot damn, I think we may have found ourselves the killer.”

“Have we indeed?” Ansgar said softly. “Then I would very much like to have a word with this Peterson fellow.”

Chapter Twenty-six

A
nsgar cursed himself for a fool. He should have suspected Peterson before. Mr. Collier had informed him and Brand months ago of the existence of demonoids, the wretched whelps of demon-possessed humans. The news of the demonoids’ existence had sent a ripple of shock and concern through the ranks of the Dalvahni. It was one reason Conall had stationed Brand and Rafe here, to study the situation and report back.

Unlike demonoids, a demon-possessed human was easy to detect. The djegrali were parasites that fed on the essence of the humans they possessed, sapping them physically and spiritually. The human body began to waste away, resulting in an unmistakable stench, a rancid odor that was easily recognizable. Demon-possessed humans also tended to be violent and often engaged in self-destructive or erratic behavior; demons loved excess in food, wine, drugs, and sex.

There was another telltale sign of djegrali possession. The eyes of a demon-possessed human were a sickly, blackish purple, like bruised plums.

Not so their violet-eyed, unnatural offspring. Aside from the sometimes unusual color of their eyes, the demonoids blended in with the populace, passing as humans and living among them. Little was known about them or their powers, thus Conall’s concern.

Blake Peterson, urbane, wealthy pillar of Hannah society, was a demonoid. Ansgar chided himself again. Had he been less befuddled by his feelings for Evangeline and fear for her safety, he would have remembered this vital bit of information earlier.

The familiar, icy detachment settled over Ansgar. He welcomed it like an old friend, let it cool his heated blood, calm, and center him. If Blake Peterson was responsible for Evangeline’s plight, he would track him down and kill him. Slowly and painfully. He was good at killing. Even among a lethal race, he excelled at it. There would be no mercy for anyone who threatened Evangeline.

Yes, he thought with grim satisfaction, reveling in the return of his dispassion, this was good. A much needed return to control after the fever of desire of the past few hours. The hunt he knew, the hunt he understood, unlike the shifting sands of his feelings for Evangeline. She was everything to him, his own personal kind of madness.

If she were harmed . . .

Steel claws raked his gut at the thought. No, he would not think on it. Reckless rage would not serve his purpose and would give the enemy an edge. He was Dalvahni. He would remain unexcited and detached. Not long ago, the idea of anything less would have been unfathomable. Those days were gone, and there was no going back. The djegrali would delight in his predicament if they but knew: Ansgar, swift arrow of Dalvahni justice, ruthless scourge of their kind, at the mercy of a flame-haired sorceress who was more dangerous and powerful than a thousand demons.

He glanced at her and was swept once more into the maelstrom. That damnable dress, he thought, his gaze lingering on her. The garnet velvet molded to her delectable curves, and the plunging bodice lifted her breasts in a tantalizing display of creamy flesh. Gods, she was lovely. After the long months of hunger and desolation, of aching want and longing, Evangeline’s scent, the intoxicating taste and feel of her, the dizzying joy of being with her again, should have been a relief. Instead, his greedy soul, starved of softness, laughter, and light for so many years, hungered for more. He could not get enough. Her teasing, haunting fragrance, the smell of Woman, lingered on his skin. The taste of her on his lips, sweet and succulent as ripe fruit, made him ravenous with need.

Images assailed him, Evangeline, her sweet, beautiful face flush with passion, eyes drowsy with pleasure as he took her.

She’d no notion of her effect on him. Or of her effect on others, he thought sourly, noting the appreciative attention directed at Evangeline by the other males in the room. It made him curse his ability to read human thought. That ability served him well in the hunt for the djegrali, but not tonight. Tonight it made him privy to the lascivious thoughts of every man present. Old, young, married, or unwed, it mattered not. They watched her with hot eyes and fantasized about being with her. He did not blame them, but understanding did nothing to whet his desire to kill them.

He sighed inwardly. Jealousy, another emotion he’d never conceived of until he met Evangeline. He was consumed with it. Had he his way, he would whisk her away and keep her all to himself. Selfish and obsessive, but that was the unvarnished truth. Not that he would get his way. She was a fighter, his Evangeline, soft and sweet on the outside with an inner core of steel. True courage was facing one’s greatest fear. She’d done so tonight, with style and aplomb. He would never forget the sight of her standing in the open doorway, all eyes upon her, the air heavy with speculation and self-righteous condemnation. She held her head high, one titian brow lifted in proud disdain.

Magnificent.

She was his, to love and protect. He was a hunter, unsurpassed in tracking skills. He would discover her enemy and crush him. He locked his gaze on the silver-haired man on the stage. Let the hunt begin with Blake Peterson.

Startled by the promise of death in Ansgar’s tone, Evie glanced at him and stifled a gasp. His eyes, smoky gray with passion not an hour ago, were pale and unforgiving as the heart of a winter storm. She’d always thought of rage as a fiery emotion, hot, fast, and consuming, but Ansgar’s fury was cloaked in ice. The expression on his beautiful face and every line of his powerful body radiated cold, deadly menace.

“Ansgar?”

His glacial gaze did not shift from Blake Peterson’s retreating figure. “Stay with Brand until I return,” he said. “He will keep you safe in my absence.”

“Ansgar, wait!” Evie reached for him, but he was gone.

What had she done? One careless, unthinking act on her part combined with a few wiggles from Mr. Collier’s contrabulator—a device that consisted of a couple of wire coat hangers twisted together and nothing more—and Ansgar was in demon hunter mode and on the prowl. Even if Mr. Peterson was bad to the bone, there was no real proof he was the killer. So what if his family wasn’t crazy about him? Family dynamics were complicated. He made her uneasy, but that didn’t mean anything. Lyle Goodson down at the Chevron station gave her the willies, too. Always staring at her and touching her hand. He was a total creeper, but that didn’t make him a murderer, and the fact she didn’t like Blake Peterson didn’t make him a murderer, either.

Blake Peterson was so elegant and suave, and so darn
rich.
If he wanted Meredith dead, he could hire somebody to do the job. Besides, why would he kill Meredith? She came from one of the “right” families, and, for all her faults, she was crazy about Trey. In her own way, Meredith had been a good wife to him, fitting in with the country club crowd, active in the Lala League and the Episcopal church. It didn’t make sense.

“I have to stop Ansgar,” she said, starting after him.

Brand stepped in front of her, barring her way. “Stay. You will distract him.”

“You saw him.” She tried to move around him, but somehow, no matter which way she moved, he was always in front of her. “He’s going to kill Blake.”

“He will do what is necessary to protect you.”

“What if Mr. Peterson is the wrong guy? What if Mr. C’s contrabulator doesn’t work or is malfunctioning?”

“I’ll have you know, my contrabulator’s in perfect working order,” Mr. Collier said.

Oh, dear, she’d hurt Mr. Collier’s feelings.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Collier,” Evie said. “I never meant to—”