Page 5 of Demon Loved
Still, this was clearly no modern town, a small place with its own peculiar charm.
But the artifacts were here. He’d sensed them almost as soon as he got out of the car and went to the trunk to retrieve his luggage. Although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where they were located, he could still feel the pulse of their power somewhere in the distance.
Not too far, though. Definitely here within Jerome’s town limits, just as the voice had said.
And Jerome, it seemed, wasn’t very large.
He went inside the hotel and strode up to the front desk, hoping he looked as if he knew what he was doing. The voice had not only provided the face and form he now wore, but human cash and credit cards, a driver’s license with his likeness on it, and a fictitious address somewhere in Los Angeles. Although that part hadn’t been explained, he supposed the voice had decided to give him a place of origin outside Arizona so it would be easier to brush off any lack of knowledge about the place.
Belshegar had no idea whether any of his false background would hold up under close scrutiny, although he supposed he would find out soon enough.
However, the clerk at the desk — a woman who looked as if she might be in her early thirties, with light brown hair pulled up into a twist and heavy false eyelashes that reminded him of a couple of woolly caterpillars resting on her eyelids — took his I.D. and credit card, ran them through the machine in front of her, and then handed them back without so much as a blink.
“Thank you for staying at the Grand Hotel, Mr. Garrett,” she said. “Do you need more than one room key?”
“One is fine,” he replied. Of course he was traveling alone.
He’d always been alone.
“Very good,” the clerk said briskly. “You’re in room 316. The elevator is just around the corner, partway down the hall.”
He thanked her and scooped up the key — which wasn’t a true key at all, but a piece of plastic he assumed must be coded to the lock on the door to his hotel room — and then shouldered his overnight bag before going in search of the elevator. It was exactly where she’d said it would be, with an old-fashioned brass cage protecting the doors.
The cage opened easily enough, though, and he headed inside. As the door closed behind him, all his otherworldly senses went on the alert, telling him that other presences lingered here. Perhaps not in the elevator itself at this exact moment, but they’d been nearby recently.
While he looked human, he wasn’t human enough to experience a shiver or anything close to it. All the same, he found himself quite relieved as he exited the elevator and made his way to the room where he’d been staying.
Once inside, though, realized he was far from relieved. How could he be, when those same presences seemed to weigh on him even more heavily in here?
“Hello,” he said politely, remembering his interactions with Victoria, the ghost who once had inhabited Elena’s house in Santa Fe. “My name is Belshegar. Who am I addressing?”
Before he spoke, he’d wondered whether he should give the spirit his true name or the name of the man he was pretending to be. However, ghosts and spirits had a way of getting to the heart of a matter, so he didn’t think it a very good idea to lie to whatever presence lingered in the space.
In the far corner of the room, a shadow grew more distinct, taking on the shape of a tall, thin man with hollow eyes. The ghost gestured toward its throat, then shook its head.
Was it trying to tell him that it couldn’t speak? Victoria had certainly been vocal enough, but Belshegar supposed he couldn’t expect all earthbound spirits to behave the same, not when they’d been their own individuals in life.
And because he’d wanted to know something of where he was staying, he’d done a little research regarding the Grand Hotel on the device he’d been provided, a cellular phone that was much more like a pocket computer. That was why he knew this place had once been a sanatorium, where people with tuberculosis and syphilis and other dread diseases had gone to be cured. It didn’t seem too strange that the spirit he saw now was someone who’d apparently suffered an affliction that had affected his ability to speak.
“Well, that’s fine,” he said, knowing he sounded a little too hearty. Although he’d certainly spent plenty of time talking to Elena Salazar over the years, he’d never had to worry too much about whether the tones he employed were precisely appropriate to human interactions. She’d already known exactly who and what he was.
This situation was very different, however. He needed to be as human as possible…even with a ghost.
“That is,” he went on hastily, “I understand if you’re unable to speak. Please rest assured that your presence here doesn’t discomfit me in the slightest.”
An expression flashed across the ghost’s face, one of what looked like sheer annoyance.
Then he disappeared.
Did I say something wrong? Belshegar thought. He certainly hadn’t intended to offend the spirit.
Perhaps the ghost was irritated because he’d hoped to frighten the person staying in this room. Being told he wasn’t frightening in the least might have been the last thing he wanted to hear.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about it now. Perhaps there was a possibility that he could ask the ghost to return so he could explain he hadn’t meant to cause any offense, but Belshegar decided that wasn’t a very sensible course of action.
Best to let sleeping ghosts lie.
Instead, he took the clothes he’d been provided out of his bag and hung them in the antique wardrobe that faced the bed. There weren’t many of them, four shirts and two pairs of pants, along with assorted socks and underthings, all of which he placed in the drawers of a nearby dresser, but he felt better knowing they wouldn’t get any more wrinkled.
