Linda Welch - A conspiracy of Demons (17 page)

He jerked his head
back
. “Give me that towel.”

I reached up and pulled the kitch
en towel off the oven’s handle.

Royal took it from my hand, wadded it up and pressed it to his shoulder.
“It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m going after them.”

Blood already soaked the towel. “No! Royal Mortensen, don’t you dare!”

He came up
on
his knees
and I lost sight of him. The backdoor banged open and banged shut.

“Fuck!” My heart
thumped
so fast, it hurt. Of all the damn, fool, idiotic. . . .

I huddled, knees to my chest, wanting to go after him, scared of another bullet, scared Royal would not return.
My back was on fire. I reached behind my head to my nap
e
, my fingers stung and came away
bloody.
Glass slivers
were e
mbedded in my skin.

I lifted my head. Jack and Mel were nowhere to be seen, and neither was. . . .

“
Mac!”

I got on hands and knees and scurried alongside the cabinets.
Every movement pierced my skin with fire but I kept going.
Surely Royal had the shooter. But that presumed
a
human
marksman
. A Gelpha killed Lynn, maybe the same who shot a
t us. Had
he outdistanced Royal?

What little color my skin carries
drain
ed
from my face.

“Mac!”

I rose up and
duckwalked
to the hall, around the kit
chen doorway and to one side. A
bout to lean
on the wall,
I
remembered
not to with all the glass in my back.

Deep breath. Dash to the living r
oom. No little dog cowering in
here. Ano
ther deep breath, up the stairs and
in
my bedroom.

“Mac.” I went to where he curled up in his red and black plaid dog bed. His chunky body shook. I knelt and pulled him
on
my knees. “It’s okay, boy. Everything’s okay.”

“What
happened
?” Jack said from behind me.

“Oh my god, Tiff, your
ne
ck’s . . . you’re bleeding,” Mel
squealed
.

A
crack
!
I hunched over Mac, but it was not another gunshot. T
he storm had reached us. Rain dashed on the bedroom window
and lightning lit up the sky
.

My
imagination went wild
. Royal, passed out from blood loss.
Royal
, weakened by his wound and in pain,
grappling
with a marksman who could be Gelpha.
An icy ball of fear expanded in my belly.

“Tiff, you’re freaking me out!”

I lifted my head and looked over at Mel.
My voice came out wobbly.
“Someone shot through the glass in the backdoor window. They hit Royal.”

Jack staggered back
, both hands slapped to his cheeks. “He’s dead?”

I shook my head as sirens pierced the noise of thunder shaking the house and rain rattling the window. The cops were coming. What would I tell them? The broken window, Royal’s blood on the kitchen floor.

“Tiff!”
Royal called.

My heart lurched. I put Mac back in his basket and stumbled t
o my feet, ran through the door
and almost tripped in my haste to get downstairs.

Royal stood in the hall. He held his hands up to ward me off as I jumped the last two steps. “Stay there, Tiff. You’ll get bloody.”

My hand flew to my mouth.
The stain on his shirt was
no
big
ger
than
my fist
and already drying, but m
y stomach
still
curdled
. I wanted to hold him, tight.
Then I wanted to slap him. “You stupid man! What
were
you thinking
?”

“It is
not
a bad as it looks. T
he bullet missed anything vital,
”
he said, sounding too damned nonchalant.

And no doubt the healing process had already begun. Knowing that didn’t make me feel any better about seeing my man taken down by a shooter.

“
Me too. Aren’t we lucky ducks.
”
I twisted on my heels to show him my back.

A rap on the front door, then the bell rang as if an aft
erthought. Panic made me dizzy -
everything was happening too fast.

“We can’
t cover it up this time,
”
Royal said.

He meant the time I shot Phaid in my backyard. He removed the body, rolled the lawnm
ower on top of the bloody grass
and cleaned my Ruger as fast as I can load it.

My mouth
went dry;
I couldn’t work up saliva to swallow.

Royal opened the door.

Officer
Ben
Cooley
stood o
n the step. Of Japanese/African—
American descent, Ben is short, slim and good-looking,
raven-black haired and dark—
eyed with lashes of which any girl would be proud.
A transparent plastic protector covered his hat.
“Your neighbor reported two gunshots and
thought she heard breaking glass at
the rear
of your house.”

His g
aze on Royal’s shirt, h
e abruptly stopped
talking
and
dipped his head to
speak into
a small walkie-talkie type thing
fastened
to his shoulder. “Discharge of firearm confirmed. One wounded.”

Royal held up two fingers.

“Two wounded,”
Cooley
went on. “Eighteen twenty-five Beeches.
It’s Mortensen and Banks.”

He looked Royal over again. “You were outside?” With his hyped-up body heat, Royal dried quickly and looked damp-dry in patches.

“In the kitchen. The shots came through the backdoor window.”

Cooley was mildly sarcastic. “Then you went outside and gave the shooter a better target?”

Royal shrugged and
winced as pain flashed over
his face. “I
thought
he had
gone when I opened the door to let Tiff’s dog in
side
.”

Ben
walked
in
the house. “
Roy
, go sit down someplace.”

Royal sat on the bottom stair.
I sat on the floor, both hands clasping his. He smiled reassuringly as his thumb stroked my knuckles.

Cooley
glanced in the kitchen, then went in there. “Where’s your other wounded,”
he
asked as he looked
at
the room. His gaze flipped to the broken window, the blood on the floor, the table with one corner destroyed.

“Tiff has glass in her
shoulders
and neck.”

More sirens. Through the open front door, I saw an ambulance, paramedics and fire truck appear over the brow of the hill. Fire truck? When there is an emergency, everyone turns up.

As they swung their vehicles to the curb and parked, another Clarion black-and-white with
siren blaring came
in
sight.

A small army of emergency personnel swarmed my house
. Two paramedics, two EMTs, two more cops I didn’t recognize. The cops joined Ben in the kitchen. A paramedic
squatted in front of Royal and peeled his shirt aside.

Delirious with excitement
and desperate to know what was going on
, Jack and Mel
buzzed around in a fine pickle
.
Obviously,
I couldn’t talk to them. When an officer bent to check out the table, Jack
hunkered
down there with him. Another officer squatted to look at the blood on the floor, with Mel practically in his lap.

Ben allowed Mac to snuffle his ankles and went as far as to extend his hand. When Mac considered his digits with a gleam in his brown eyes and ears f
lat on his head, Ben whipped his
hand away and laughed self-consciously.

“Careful,” Royal warned, straight-faced. “He has already sampled
human
flesh and may have a taste for it.”

T
he time we were in Monch
ard and Mac bit Royal’s ankle - a
h, the good old days.

Still in a daze, a state of unbelief,
I didn’t hear the chatter between the EMTs and paramedics. The EMTs went out and came back with a gurney and
helped Royal onto it
.
Before I could snap my fingers, he lay on his back, hooked to an IV, oxygen mask over
his mouth. He winked at me. He
argue
d
with
me
that
his
wound was not serious
, but knew cooperation led to the fastest
way through this mess.

The street quickly
became
a circus. Another two units and a sheriff’s car arrived and had to park farther down the street. A news van stopped on the brow of the hill when the cops
prevented
it
from
coming
to the house
. Ignoring the pounding rain, half my neighbors stood outside on their steps or in their front yards.

Mor
e trouble at Tiff Banks’ house -
they would blacklist me for sure. We didn’t have a homeowner’s association so they couldn’t kick me out, but would doubtless make their displeasure known.

Another gurney came in.
Guess who ended up
face down
on
it
?

I
lifted
my head. “My dog!”

“He’ll be fine,” one of the EMTs soothed.

I rolled off the gurney and braced my hands on the wall. “No he won’t, not with
you
going in and out, leaving doors open.”

Ben came in the hall.
“I’ll watch him, Tiff.”

“No you won’t.” I went to the front door and looked down the street, waved to Wanda and winced as agony shot through my
shoulders
.

Wanda pointed to herself, making
who me?
motions. I beckoned with both hands.

I hissed and sucked on my teeth as a
nother tiny glass shard tinkled in the metal pan. I clung to the edges of the
examination table
with both hands. I could have let the nurse anesthetize my entire back, shoulders and neck, but it would mean
staying
in
this damn hospital
longer.

“That’s the last of it, Miss Banks,” sai
d the sadist in nurse’s scrubs. She sounded way too bright and chipper. “
No permanent damage, these little nicks will heal in no time
.”

Little nicks? As if she’d call them
little nicks
if they were in her back.

She was distracting me so I didn’t anticipate the screaming agony
as she dabbed
antiseptic on my zillion tiny woun
ds. I about came up off the
table
and had to bite down on unflattering names for her.

She patted my wrist. “I’m going to leave you
to rest
for a few minutes. Relax.”

I sigh
ed with relief and
rolled my head to relieve the pressure on one cheek. I
ached to see Royal
and
had to
call Wanda to check
on
Mac, confined
in
her backyard with a bowl of water and a chew toy. I’d reassured her I would be home before dark, but
no one
had been by to get my statement
yet
.

Ro
yal c
ouldn’t stay long in here or hospital personnel
would make noise about him healing
faster than the average guy. I heal
a smidgen
faster than a
typical
gal, but not enough to raise eyebrows.

The nurse came back with a roll of gauze and taped a wad to my
skin
. She helped me sit up, and fastened the hospital gown down the back.

“Would you like to see Mr. Mortensen? He can receive visitors now.”

You bet!
“Thanks.”

She went to the door and pointed around the frame. “He’s in 6B. You can have a few minutes before I let the detectives in.”

I expected an in
terrogation - I mean interview -
before we left the hospital. And we would follow it up with a visit to the precinct
ASAP.

I crept to Royal’s room and peeked around the doorframe.
Elevated to a sitting position,
bare—
chested, the white dressing stood out on
his
bronzed torso.
H
e wore
pale-blue
hospital
pants
with a thin blanket pulled up to his knees
.
The pants
were
snug and not at all stylish.

I smirked. “My, don’t you look
dashing
.”

He smiled lazily with one eyebrow lofted.
“I knew you were coming
so I dressed for the occasion.”

“How come guys get pants?” I sat on the bedside chair and plucked at my
short
gown adorned with tiny apricot roses.

“Because women have
nicer
legs?”

I rubbed my
blue-green
left knee
.
I
must
have bruised it when I hit the kitchen floor. “
This leg isn’t too spiffy
.”

“
Tiff, I - ”
he began, then stopped as t
wo d
etectives walked into the room.

I recognized Tony
DeMa
io
, a forty-year-old
Italian beanpole with graying hair, a narrow face and deep-blue eyes. Tony favors tailored suits, skinny ties and expensive sho
es. Today he wore a café au lait
outfit over a pale-blue shirt
with a bronze tie.