You Slay Me

  I looked down the street, the hairs on the back of my neck slowly standing on end. There was no movement on the street either. No people, no cars, no birds ... nothing. Not even a flower bobbed in the slight breeze from the river. I looked behind me. The cross street was the Rue Saint-Louis en l'fle, a busy street with stores and restau­rants, and lots of shops. It had taken Rene ten minutes to navigate a couple of blocks because the traffic and shop­pers were so dense, but where I stood, the noise of said traffic and shoppers was oddly filtered, as if the whole of Rue Sang des Innocents was swathed in cotton wool, leaving it an oasis of stillness and silence in a city known for its liveliness.

  "The word creepy doesn't even begin to cover the situation," I said aloud, just to hear something. Unease rip­pled through me as I held my case tightly, giving Mine. Deauxville's bell one more long ring. The skin on the back of my neck tightened even more as I noticed that the door to the building wasn't shut properly.

  "Someone must have been in a rush to leave this morning," I told the door, trying to tamp down on the major case of the willies the silent street was giving me. "Someone was just late for work, and they didn't quite close the door. That's all. There's nothing foreboding in a door that hasn't been shut all the way. There's nothing eerie in that at all. There's nothing creepy about a street... Oh, crap. Hello?" I pushed the door open and took a step into a tiny hall. The entrance narrowed into a dark passage beyond a brown-paneled stairway that led upward. "Anyone here? I'm looking for Mme. Deauxville. Hellooooooo?"

  I expected the last notes of my hello to echo up the stairwell, but strangely, my* words were muffled, as if they had been absorbed into the walls, filtered by the same strange effect that kept the street outside as quiet as a tomb.

  "I would have to think of a tomb," I grumbled to my­self as I carefully closed the door behind me, turning to start up the stairs to the second floor. 'There are times when it absolutely does not pay to have a good imagina­tion."

  There were two doors in the tiny hall stretching the length of the second-floor stairs. One bore a silver plate with the word deauxville written on it in a fancy script mat screamed expensive. The other door, I assumed, was a second entrance to the apartment. I stepped up to the main door, one arm holding the case tight to my chest, the other upraised to knock. Just as my knuckles were about to touch the glossy oak of the door, a wave of dread and foreboding, a sense of something being very, very wrong swept over me. The sensation was so strong, I stepped backwards until the coolness of the paneling seeped through the thin cotton of my dress. I clutched the case and struggled to breathe, my chest tight with dread. The feeling of unease that had set in as soon as Rene left swelled into something much more frightening, leaving me with goose bumps on my arms and a warning voice in my head shrieking at me to leave the building that very second, if not sooner.

  Something horrible had been in that apartment. Some­thing ... unnatural.

  "I am confident," I ground out through my teeth, and forced my feet forward to the door. "It's just an eccentric collector, nothing evil. There is nothing to be afraid of. I am a professional. I can do this."

  The door swung open at the first brush of my hand against it.

  I stood frozen in the doorway, the skin on my back crawling with horror as I looked down the short hall into what must be the living room of the apartment. Tiny lit­tle motes of dust danced lazily in the late afternoon sun­shine that streamed through the tall floor-to-ceiling arched windows, spilling in a ruby pool on a carpet of deeper red. A bouquet of fresh flowers sat on an antique table between two of the windows, the sharp scent of it detectable even from where I stood. The ceilings were high, cream-colored to complement the robin's-egg-blue walls, the edges scalloped with intricate molding. Along one wall I could see a highly polished antique desk with a red upholstered matching chair sitting before it at an angle, as if its occupant had arisen just a moment before.

  Everything was lovely, beautiful, expensive, just exactly what I expected in the apartment of a rich woman who lived in an exclusive area of Paris.

  Everything except the body, that is. Suspended from a chandelier, a woman's body was doubled over, hanging from her hands tied behind her back, her body swinging slightly above a black circle of ash that had been drawn on the lovely red carpet, a circle inscribed with twelve symbols. The dead woman was Mme. Deauxville; of that I was sure.

  "J'ai une grenouille dans mon bidet," I said, and wished fervently that the worst of my problems were frogs.

  2

  1 hope I get major brownie points for not racing scream­ing from the house as soon as my eyes caught sight of the dead body of the woman I had come halfway around the world to meet. I hope whoever controls the karma scale rewards me for not getting the hell out of Dodge while I could, because stepping into Mme. Deauxville's apart­ment while her body swayed gently in the warm after­noon sun was the hardest thing I've ever done.

  OK, I admit it; I whimpered a little bit, and I left the front door ajar because something in the primitive part of my brain was insisting on an easy escape route just in case the body should suddenly spring to life and try to grab me (in the best horror-movie style), but the whimper was small, and I stopped it as soon as I realized it was coming from my mouth.

  "Get a hold of yourself," I said sternly, flinching at the sound of my voice in the dead apartment. Then I flinched at the way the word dead rolled around in my mind. "If she's really dead, she can't hurt you. Oh, shoot, if she's dead ... Uck. I suppose I should make sure she's really dead."

  It took what seemed to be hours to travel the seven steps needed to cross the short hall. I sidled around the ash circle, unwilling to disturb it, unwilling to touch the body. Surely she couldn't have survived being strung up like that? Surely the lack of movement was indicative of death? Surely I could get by without checking to make sure she was really dead?

  "Poop," I said, and set my case down carefully on a beautifully embroidered antique chair. I shuffled forward, careful not to touch anything as I stopped directly in front of the body, my toes just brushing the outer edge of the ash circle. I took a deep breath, pushed down the horrible feeling that I shouldn't be doing what I was about to do, and leaned forward to feel for a pulse on Mme. Deauxville's neck.

  'Won.'"

  Startled by the man's voice behind me, I jumped just as I reached for Mme. Deauxville, sending me plummet­ing toward the body, my arms cartwheeling madly. I screamed even as I tried to twist away from her, but it was a hand on the back of my dress yanking me back­wards that kept me from plunging into the circle.

  "Ne la touchez pas!"

  "Huh?" I rubbed the goose bumps on the suddenly cold flesh of my arms as I blinked at the man who loomed before me. "I'm... uh... sorry, non parlez French."

  "American?" the man asked, his nostrils flaring as if he smelled something.

  "Yeah," I answered, still rubbing my arms. I looked from him to the body, then back, the realization flashing through my head that I was alone in an apartment with a stranger and a dead body, which probably meant that he was ...

  "I didn't kill her," he said quickly, evidently reading my mind before turning away to look at the body.

  I used the moment to examine him. I'm not exactly an idiot—if I find myself in a room with a murder victim, the big, tall, dark-haired, extremely handsome guy dressed in black who positively reeks of danger and who mysteriously pops up out of nowhere is naturally going to be on the top of my Potential Murderer List.

  Which meant I had to get myself and my dragon out of there before Mr. Killer decided to enjoy a double-header.

  I grimaced just as the man turned back to me. Something flashed deep in his dark green eyes. "Are you unwell? You aren't going to vomit on me, are you?"

  "That wasn't on my list of planned activities for the af­ternoon, no, but if you really insist, I suppose I could try for a hairball or something."

  His head tipped to the side for a moment as he exam­ined me from toes to nose. "I'
ve never completely under­stood American humor. That was supposed to be a joke, yes?"

  "Yes, it was." Oh, brilliant, Aisling, just brilliant. Here you are trapped in a room with a murderer in a foreign country, and all you can do is make jokes when what you need to be doing is running away as fast as you can. I took a deep breath and edged toward the chair that held my case. He moved backwards a step, effectively block­ing me off from the exit. Panic, held rather tenuously at bay, rose within me. It quickly became clear that I needed to distract the handsome green-eyed murderer so I could escape.

  His eyes glittered darkly at me in a way that simulta­neously scared the crap out of me and made me want to throw myself on him. "Ah. Yes. A joke. I thought that is what it was."

  Distraction, girl. Don't get caught up in a pair of pretty eyes, not when they likely belonged to a cold-blooded killer. "Um. I was just going to check and make sure Mme. Deauxville was really dead." I closed my eyes for a moment, aware of just how damning that sounded. "That is, I wanted to make sure she wasn't still alive. Not that I want her to be dead, you understand. I just want to make sure that she's not. Oh, crap, it's all coming out wrong."

  "You want to make sure there is nothing you can do for her," the dark man said neutrally, his voice—a sexy blend of an English accent and something that sounded vaguely Germanic to my ears—oddly flat. It sounded just the way you'd expect someone to speak if he sus­pected you of being a deranged killer.

  "Although that really is an oxymoron. I mean, what killer isn't deranged?"

  The brilliant green eyes considered me for a moment. "Is that a rhetorical question, or do you wish for an analy­sis of the mind of killers?"

  I groaned. "Sorry, that just kind of slipped out. Don't you think one of us should ... you know, check her? To make sure she's not just gravely wounded?"

  He looked back at the body. I looked, as well. "You don't believe she's really dead?"

  I had to admit he had a point. The body was too still, the heavy silent atmosphere of the apartment (house, street, possibly the whole world) almost smothering. I knew without even thinking about it that there were only two living beings in the apartment, and the body that hung by her hands wasn't one of them.

  The man cocked his head again, then whirled around and closed the door that was still standing open. Fear flared to life with the movement. He was going to kill me! I looked around frantically for a weapon, shrieking when his hand clamped down on my arm.

  "What is the matter with you? You look like you're going to pass out."

  "Me? Nothing's the matter with me. I'm fine. Although, now I come to think of it, I have a horrible memory prob­lem. I can't remember what people look like. Or sound like. Or the things they said to me, or... or... anything. So anyone who was worried about what I might have seen or heard would really have nothing to worry about at all. Because of my memory problem. It's permanent, too."

  He gave me a long, curious look, then made an an­noyed noise and let go of my arm as he squatted down to study the ash circle. "I told you I didn't kill her. I'm not going to harm you. Your fear of me is senseless."

  What is it about scorn of any sort that makes your bravado fire up? My chin lifted at the arrogant tone in his back-to-being-sexy voice. "Yeah? Who said I was afraid of you?"

  "I can smell your fear. What do you make of this?"

  He gestured toward the ash circle. I glanced toward it and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to sniff the air around my armpit region without it being obvious I was doing a BO check. "It's an ash circle, inscribed with the twelve symbols of Ashtaroth. What does fear smell like, exactly?"

  He frowned at the circle but didn't touch it. "Sexy."

  I blinked a couple of times. (Like that was going to make me think better?) "What?"

  He straightened up and turned toward me, and once again I was very much aware that I was alone in an apartment with a dead woman and a mysterious man who was much too handsome for my peace of mind. "It brings out the predator in me."

  My eyes widened as he leaned toward me, his eyes a mesmerizing green that seemed to suck me into their cool depths. There was something about him that made every atom within me aware that he was a man, and I was a woman, and there were certain fundamental differences between us that my body very much wanted to explore, regardless of the fact that he might be a murderer. "Oy."

  He nodded, the thick black of his lashes emphasizing the purity of the green irises. "And because of the mas­culine nature of my reaction, you feel threatened on a feminine level. Thus you make jokes as a defense when others might feel it inappropriate to do so."

  "Are you saying there's a guy/girl thing going on be­tween us?" Various parts of my body were pleading for just such an eventuality, but I firmly told those parts to behave themselves, and remember that the man they were lusting after was probably a murderer. "Are you saying that I'm afraid because you're a man and I'm a woman, and not at all because we're standing in front of a woman who was quite obviously murdered?"

  His lips quirked. He looked back toward Mme. Deauxville. "No, I am not saying that. Is this circle closed or open?"

  I looked down. It looked whole. "Looks closed to me. Um. Who are you?"

  His gaze flickered around the room. "I might ask the same question of you."

  "You might," I said, watching as he gave the circle a generous berth. He stopped on the other side of the body, in front of a gold-and-scarlet couch that matched the two other chairs in the room, frowning down at it. "But I asked first. So, who are you? Not that you have lo tell me, but I expect the police are going to want to know, so I thought you might just want to practice your alibi on me."

  He gave me another one of his impatient looks, then reached into the breast pocket of his black leather jacket and pulled out a wallet, flipping it open to flash an official-looking identity card at me. "Drake Vireo. Interpol."

  My mouth hung open in fly-catching position for a cou­ple of seconds before I realized it. "Interpol? The one that's like the international Scotland Yard? You're a detective?"

  "Of a sort." He started to close his wallet.

  "Wait a minute," I said, carefully skirting around the circle and Mme. Deauxville. "I didn't just fall off the stu­pid wagon. I want to see that up close."

  He waved it toward the couch as I moved over next to him. "If the circle is still closed, how did the demon es­cape?"

  There are times when a girl just has to have a good goggle. This was one of them. I stared, goggle-eyed. "What is it with everyone in this country, you're all demon-obsessed or something? What demon? What are you talking about?"

  He made a tck noise in the back of his throat. It ex­pressed all sorts of annoyance and impatience, with just a smidgen of an implied eye roll. "I am asking you what happened to the demon that was summoned by whoever drew the circle. If the circle is closed, as you say it is, then it would be impossible for the demon to leave, and yet the proof is before our eyes."

  I looked at where he was pointing his wallet. Between the couch and the wall there was a black smudge on the floor, as if someone had rubbed charcoal on it. I looked at it for a moment, then back at Drake, unsure of whether he was totally and completely mad, or if I was. I decided that since I'd known him the least amount of time, he got to be //. "You're serious, aren't you? You really think a demon has something to do with this? I'll admit that who­ever killed Mme. Deauxville did so in a manner that makes it look like the ritual destruction of a demon, but that doesn't mean that there was an actual demon in­volved."

  One glossy black eyebrow cocked. "Ritual destruc­tion? How so?"

  I gestured toward the body, pleased that all those years spent on my little hobby finally had a payoff. "The Circle of Ashtaroth beneath her feet with the twelve symbols of summoning, the way the body is hung from her hands bound behind her, and I'm willing to bet if you bend down and look at her chest, you'll find something made of silver piercing her heart. In other words, she was mur­dered in the style of the first of
the Three Demon Deaths, only this woman was not a demon, which really is no surprise, since demons are nothing more than fiction."

  Drake looked amused. "You don't believe in demons?"

  "I'll take no for five hundred, Alex. Demons don't exist outside the minds of some pretty twisted and con­fused people."

  His nostrils flared again. If I weren't so convinced he was stark, staring mad, I'd have admitted to myself that he even did a nostril flare well. "Are you trying to tell me that despite the evidence before us, you do not believe that a demon was recently called to this apartment?"

  I pursed my lips, slowly moving away from him. No quick movements; everyone knew that was the key to keeping dangerously mad people calm. Slow and easy was the plan. "OK, you know what? I'm going to just scoot over to the desk where the phone is and call the po­lice. You can do your detective stuff while I'm calling."

  "I've already called the police. They should be here in four minutes. Why do you hesitate to tell me what hap­pened to the demon? Did you have something to do with Aurora Deauxville's death?"

  I stopped before the desk, trying to figure out whether I could make it to the door before he grabbed me. My gaze dropped to the case sitting on the chair. Rats. I wouldn't be able to make it without the aquamanile. "No, I just got here. I'm a courier. I was supposed to deliver a package to her. I don't know anything about demons or who would want Mme. Deauxville dead. But as we're on the subject, just what are you doing here? I assume you aren't here in a professional capacity, because if you were, the homicide squad would be here, too. So, if you didn't kill her, you must have seen who did. She doesn't look like she's been dead too long."

  "She doesn't look like she's been dead long?"

  I pointed to where Mme. Deauxville's arms were bound behind her back. "Rigor hasn't set in yet. If you look at the angle between her arms and her back, you'll notice it's closing as rigor starts to take hold. That means she's either been dead for more than twelve hours, and rigor is wearing off, or it's just setting in, which means she's been dead... oh, maybe fifteen minutes. But I don't have to tell you that—you're a cop."