Embracing the Ghoul Read online

  “Doctor Richel, you asked if I could sense the demon. I’m going to return the question.”

  “Me?” The idea startled her. She stopped probing her own odd, inner tension to stare at him.

  “You sensed it had inhabited the dead gang leader.”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Remember I said I’d had a partner who was a ghoul. He could follow a trail of evil, just by the terror and hurt it left in its wake.”

  Panic crawled through Carla, prickling her skin and knotting her muscles. She lashed out defensively. “So why don’t you ask your pal, the human bloodhound, for help?”

  “Jack’s dead.”

  She felt his grief, but distantly, and her own shamed embarrassment was less than her increasing physical distress. She felt sick and had her hand on the door handle as Rhys parked in front of her apartment building.

  “Doctor Richel? Carla?”

  She opened the door, staggered out and threw up.

  He handed her a handkerchief and stood frowning at her as she wiped her mouth. “Are you okay?”

  “It’s here,” she choked out.

  “What?” His hand went to his gun and he looked around in swift appraisal.

  “Not in the building.” She’d paid a friend of her mother’s to ward the building before she moved in. It felt as if the wards had held. She leaned against the cold brick of the building. It was her home and she read its memories. “The demon’s gone.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.” She could feel the hate and threat fading. “Bodies, round the back.” She pushed away from the wall.

  “You stay here.”

  But she didn’t take orders well, especially when Rhys was heading alone around the corner of the building without calling for back up. And she had to see.

  Something had gutted, mauled and feasted on the two bodies left by the dumpster.

  Carla threw up again, dry retching while Rhys holstered his gun and spoke into his phone. His orders were crisp.

  She had tears in her eyes. “It’s the boy from the hospital.”

  “What?” He swung around to her.

  “The boy from the hospital. I forget his name. The one who saw the demon.”

  He swore. “I gave orders to hold onto him.”

  “Against a demon and the boy’s own fear?” She shuddered. There was so much terror here, she was jittering out of her skin. She could have run the Boston marathon twice.

  “What number’s your apartment?”

  “Thirty two,” she answered, surprised.

  “Go in. Have a shower. I’ll talk to you when I’ve got the scene organized.”

  Belatedly, she caught the increasing sound of sirens. She nodded and ducked inside just as the first squad car squealed into the car park.

  Running up the stairs to her apartment used up none of her excess energy. She shut herself in the bathroom and rinsed her mouth twice, brushing her teeth vigorously till her breath was minty and clean. Then a hot shower pounded the shocking cold from her muscles and she felt almost ready to face Rhys and his suggestion that she could sense the demon’s presence; as she had, at least when it was close to her home, her safe place.

  It had tried to invade her home. Had it read the boy’s memories and tracked whom he’d confided in? The demon was smart enough to know that if no one knew it existed, then it would have extra time to grow strong.

  It would come after her again.

  Stop that, she commanded herself sharply. Telling herself horror stories was futile.

  She towel-dried her hair and left it loose, while she pulled on faded jeans and a red fleecy sweater. She wanted to sink into the comfort of being home.

  The light golden pine floors and cream walls of the south-facing apartment were a backdrop to over-sized comfortable furniture, bright woven rugs and flourishing potted plants. The array of herbs, ferns and African violets usually steadied her, absorbing her excess energy, but not this morning. She picked a sprig of mint and rubbed it between her fingers, crushing the leaves to release the fresh fragrance.

  The doorbell rang, and she dropped the mint leaves in their pot and padded barefoot to answer it.

  “May I come in?” Rhys asked. “Your wards are good and strong,” he added approvingly.

  “Come in,” she invited. Being other-natured, he needed her permission to cross the wards. He had it. Just seeing him steadied her. She held the door wider, then locked it behind them with a sense of relief.

  “You realize the demon’s after you.” It wasn’t a question.

  “It’s kind of hard to miss.”

  Defeated by her wards, it had nonetheless left a clear message: don’t mess with the hell-born.

  She whirled away. “Coffee? I’ll make some toast.”

  “Doctor Richel.” Rhys wouldn’t let her avoid the issue.

  She interrupted. “Call me Carla.”

  “I’m Rhys.” He closed the distance between them, took the coffee tin from her hands, and set it aside. His skin was tight over his cheekbones, regret and determination in his hazel eyes. “You sensed the demon’s presence here.”

  “Yes, but…” She didn’t want to hunt a demon. “It meant me to. It wants me scared.”

  “You’re not a person to let fear prevent you doing the right thing.” He took a step forward.

  She retreated, bumping up against the kitchen counter. “Even if I wanted to hunt the demon, it will be hiding its presence, now. I won’t sense it till it…feeds…again. It’ll be too late, then.”

  “It’s never too late. But in fact, I don’t want you to hunt the demon directly. I want you to track it backwards.”

  “What? Why?” She gripped the counter behind her, fingers pressing into the woodwork. Even now, even scared, her body reacted to Rhys. The energy of this horrible night skittered over her skin, pulsed at her throat, and coiled low in her stomach.

  He moved.

  Her nostrils flared, picking up the unexpected scent of his arousal. Her gaze flew back to his eyes. They burned the color of golden fire.

  His mouth twisted. “You’re not the only one humming with energy, Carla. My instincts are prowling.”

  “Sex can be a defiance of death.” She’d read it in a psychiatry manual. The strain they were under could explain this wildfire attraction. She wore no bra and under the soft sweater her peaking breasts rubbed against the fabric with every breath. She needed his touch to soothe them.

  “Could be.” He gathered her loose hair, combed it back and wrapped it round his hand, holding her head in place. “Or could be you just get to me.”

  His other hand slid under her sweater and claimed her breast as his open-mouthed hunger answered hers. He teased her nipple with a circling thumb, while his teeth raked her bottom lip. He licked the hurt, then met the challenge of her questing tongue.

  The wet, slick flavor of him set off the need for more. She stroked his tongue, and undid three buttons of his shirt, slid her hands in, and rubbed her palms over the hard nubs of his nipples.

  He groaned and gripped her waist, lifted her and placed her on the edge of the counter, stepping into the V of her legs and moving his hold to her thighs, running his thumbs over the inner seam of her jeans. Then one hand cupped her intimately.

  The heat of his hand aroused her through the barrier of old denim and silk. The stroke of long, strong fingers teased. She wriggled almost off the counter, held only by his body, his strength.

  “Please.”

  “I want to please you.” His hot breath burned her ear. He found the sensitive skin behind it, licked, blew. “I want you to please me.” He slid down the zipper of her jeans.

  She slid off the bench and went on tiptoe as his hand found entrance.

  One long finger slid maddeningly back and forth over damp silk. She shifted to its rhythm, trying to capture him.

  “Rhys.”

  “You’re beautiful. Fierce, hungry, alive.”

  She pulsed with every hoarse, m
uttered compliment, letting her energy flare around both of them, inflaming their senses, confident a dragon lover would survive her fever. She reached for his belt.

  Abruptly, his hand stilled.

  The buzzing in her ears wasn’t passion.

  He answered his phone. “Draig.” He listened. “No. Okay. Yeah, you take care of it. No, follow procedure.” He disconnected.

  They stared at one another, his hand in her jeans, her hands crumpling his shirt. Very slowly, he withdrew his hand.

  “Sorry.” Color flushed his square cheekbones. He stepped back.

  So, not sorry for the interruption: sorry they’d started.

  Her hands shook as she zipped her jeans. She was soft and wet, ready for loving. “You should leave.” Before she shook apart with wanting him.

  “I won’t touch you again.” He inhaled sharply. “It was unprofessional, insensitive. You’re vulnerable.”

  “I don’t need your protection.” Not even with a demon on the doorstep.

  His jaw set like he’d like to argue. A muscle ticked by his mouth. “Well, I need your help.”

  “To track the damn demon.” How could she have forgotten? But a glance at his body showed how. He was still aroused. And so was she. She folded her arms over her breasts.

  “Yes.” He redid the buttons on his shirt. “Someone had to release the demon from its bindings. If we find its original place of binding, it’ll be easier to call it back and rebind it.”

  “Who’ll recall it? An exorcist?”

  “I have someone looking into that question. First, I need to know what style of demon we’re dealing with, and its binding will tell us that. I’m hoping you can follow its trail of horror back to the binding.”

  “Lucky me.”

  “Will you do it?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “Yes,” he answered seriously. “There’s a ghoul working for the FBI. He’s in Alaska at the moment, but I can put in a request for him to fly in.”

  “And meantime, the demon continues feasting?” It wasn’t acceptable, and they both knew it. She sighed. “Buy me breakfast on the way, and I’m all yours.”

  “Not yet, but you will be.”

  She glanced up at him quickly, and knew he was answering the last half of her statement. “Don’t bet on it,” she muttered. After this shemozzle, she’d control her libido if it killed her.

  Chapter Three

  Two blueberry muffins and a coffee satisfied her physical hunger, but Carla couldn’t enjoy them. The obvious place to start retracing the demon’s emergence was where its first known host had died. Elio had died at the gang fight.

  The neighborhood felt shadowed even in the bright morning light. Rundown buildings were framed in garbage, its normal collection of drug pushers and prostitutes converted to onlookers as police worked the crime scene. Two of their own had died here, plus Lou Fforde in hospital. The neighborhood knew any aggression on their part would be met and matched by police itching for revenge. The watching crowd stood silently.

  Rhys parked by two squad cars and the CSI van. He nodded to the officer on guard and ushered Carla through the crime scene tape.

  The grim-faced professionals recording and deciphering the evidence barely impinged on her consciousness. Her ghoul nature was feeding on the stink of violence saturating the area and picking through it for the trail of the demon. The damned thing had enjoyed the terror and violence here, inhabiting not just Elio, but another gang member and one of the police officers. It had been in their bodies as they died, and had enjoyed that experience as much as it had enjoyed possessing them to berserker rage.

  Carla trembled at the brimstone chill of evil.

  “What’s wrong?” Rhys moved, placing his body to shield her from onlookers.

  “I’ve never read a scene so clearly before. I’m not normally clairvoyant.” She drew a deep breath. “Either all the negative energy here is breaking in new abilities in me, or the demon was enjoying itself so much, it etched its pleasures into the place.”

  “Which do you think it is?” He stood close, but didn’t touch her.

  She looked around the slum room with its shattered television and shredded sofas. “The demon. I think it made its first kill here, in this building.”

  Rhys inhaled sharply. “Then it was only unbound last night.”

  “Yes.” She gripped his hand, anchoring herself to warmth and life. “It couldn’t believe its luck and was celebrating.”

  His fingers closed around hers. “I’ll cut its party short,” he vowed, and raised his voice. “Donovan, I want the gang leader, Elio’s, last movements tracked. Everything he did, everywhere he went, for the last twenty four hours.”

  “Yes, sir.” The plain clothes detective muttered something to his younger, female partner, and they both left.

  “I thought I was to track him?”

  Rhys frowned down at her. “Can you? You seemed doubtful before.”

  “That was before I knew how strong the trail would be.” It was as clear to her as if someone had marked the way with rotting garbage. She pointed. “Elio died here. Before that, he killed, here and here, and tortured.” She led the way upstairs. An apartment door stood open, empty. Walking through it, she crossed to the grease-spattered kitchenette and opened a cupboard.

  “Hell.” Rhys swore. His people’s earlier cursory building search had missed the child’s body. It had been discarded in an under-sink cupboard.

  Tears ran down Carla’s face. She turned instinctively into his embrace, needing its bone-breaking pressure. “She was only a baby, Rhys. Only a baby.”

  “I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” He pressed her face into the curve of his throat. “Harvey,” he bellowed.

  An older man arrived at a run, wearing the forensic suit of his profession. Three patrol officers came with him, guns drawn.

  They lowered their guns at the sight of their captain, and the reason for his anger.

  “Process the scene,” he snapped. There would be time enough later to learn how the child’s body had been missed.

  “We have to stop it,” Carla muttered. She wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.

  He pulled her out of the room and back toward the stairs. “We will. In there, was it the demon or Elio having fun?” Any police officer soon learned humans could be as hateful as demons, with minds twisted by abuse, drugs or innate evil.

  “Demon. It drank her innocence.” Carla shuddered.

  “Damn it.” He punched a wall. His dragon nature flickered on the edge of changing, fire flashing momentarily.

  Carla edged around him and ran down the stairs.

  He caught her at the entrance. “I scared you?” He was disbelieving.

  “No,” she said flatly. She’d never be scared of him. “I sniffed and I smelled the demon.” Her fury and pity for the child had forged the link. If she picked past the demon’s grotesque satisfaction, she could just smell its fainter, incoming trail. It had been starving, riding Elio’s memory and body to feast in a house of despair. She reached out and clasped Rhys’s hand. His warm, positive energy comforted her. “Elio walked this way.”

  They were out on the street, crossing it despite the traffic. Cars stopped. Humans couldn’t see Rhys’s dragon nature, but his uniform and his rage were enough.

  She led the way unerringly through the tangle of streets and stopped outside a pawnbrokers. “He bought it here.”

  “Bought what?”

  “The amulet.” She slipped her hand from Rhys’s and ducked into an alley. “He put it on and it shattered.” She crouched and picked up shards of jade.

  “Careful.” He crouched, too, touching her shoulder in warning.

  “The demon’s gone.” She ran her thumb over a jade shard. “This was meant to bind it for all time, but Elio had violence in his heart when he put it on and it broke the binding. The demon ate his soul.”

  She dropped the jade.

  “It’s in too many pieces
to reconstruct the pattern.” Rhys straightened to his full height. “Maybe the pawnbroker will remember. At least we can find out where it came from.”

  The pawnbroker had a name and address for them: Mrs. Sue Do.

  A middle-aged Vietnamese woman answered their knock at her apartment door. Understandably cautious in that neighborhood, it took Rhys’s police identification for her to slide off the chain and open the door fully. She wore fuzzy slippers and a pink toweling robe over pink flannelette pajamas.

  “I work nights.” She tightened the knot on her robe. “I’m a cook at a diner.”

  “We’re sorry to interrupt you,” Rhys said. “We’re inquiring about the pawnbroker on the corner, Katz’s.”

  “That cheat. Sit down.”

  Carla and Rhys subsided onto a shabby mushroom-pink sofa. Mrs. Do hitched her small self back into the depths of a cracked leather recliner.

  “Katz’s records show you placed a jade pendant with him.”

  “Huh.” Mrs. Do snorted. “And he didn’t give me what it’s worth.”

  “Where did you get the pendant, Mrs. Do?”

  “What?” She flung her hands in the air. “You think I stole it?”

  Rhys waited out the minor explosion.

  The lack of response calmed her faster than any explanation. She adjusted the fold of her robe’s collar, and answered sullenly. “It was my uncle’s. Uncle Tan. He was a Buddhist monk. The pendant was old. Katz should have given me more.” She clung to her grievance even in face of the new provocation of police suspicion. “That Katz is a cheat.”

  Carla ignored the repeated complaint, concentrating instead on the history of the amulet. As the possession of a Buddhist monk, the amulet would have had a definite purpose, containing the demon. But could the purpose have been forgotten or misunderstood through the years? Surely no responsible man, knowing the purpose of the amulet, would have left it to Mrs. Do? And where had it come from originally? Vietnam? China? Tibet? What demon would monks try to bind?