Page 6 of Demon Loved
Now what?
Explore, he told himself. You sensed the artifacts, but you don’t know precisely where they are. Use the human form you’ve been given and wander through Jerome to see if you can get a better idea of where those things are being hidden.
Not for the first time, he wondered why the voice hadn’t provided him with their precise location. Surely if it had known that the artifacts were in the keeping of a witch and a warlock who lived in this town, then it must have also known their address.
But possibly it had been unable to pass that information along. While Belshegar had to admit that he didn’t know very much about such things, he guessed the witch and warlock in question must have placed all sorts of wards on the artifacts to ensure they remained safely hidden. It was no great leap from there to believe those wards might also have prevented the voice from relaying the exact location of the items it wanted him to find.
Magic, after all, could be quite an unpredictable thing…and doubly so when employed by humans. Mortals could be oddly powerful, especially because they didn’t have to abide by the same rules that Belshegar or other beings like him were forced to follow, and therefore they were always inventing new ways to wield their powers or bend magic to their wills.
All that aside, it looked like a fine evening, and what better way to enjoy it than to wander the streets of the former mining town and see what he could find? Although he couldn’t come right out and ask where the witch and warlock who possessed the items he was seeking lived — magical folks were naturally secretive about their talents, and therefore did not advertise the less conventional aspects of their natures — perhaps he could listen to people’s conversations and possibly pick up a clue here and there.
Or not. While he knew from watching television with Elena that humans could have loose lips when they’d imbibed enough alcoholic beverages, he somehow doubted any self-respecting witch or warlock would let a secret like that slip, no matter how much they’d had to drink.
He allowed himself a shrug, getting a bit more used to this body and how it moved, and then headed out. The corridor just outside his room was empty of both humans and ghosts, but he still found his way to the stairwell and made his descent that way rather than use the elevator. This place also felt ever so slightly haunted, but nowhere near as badly as the elevator did.
Soon enough, though, he had emerged into the lobby, which wasn’t precisely bustling at that hour but still had enough people occupying it to make the space seem a bit friendlier than the empty stairwell. And then he descended the steep steps to the street level, which in front of the hotel wasn’t much more than a glorified parking lot.
However, he spied a set of stairs set into the hillside, beckoning him down to Jerome’s main street, where he’d noticed shops and restaurants and bars as the self-driving taxi brought him up to the Grand Hotel. That certainly seemed like the best place to look for any clues that might lead him to the elusive artifacts.
Besides, he was hungry. In his true form, he did not need to eat, as he derived the sustenance he needed from the air he breathed and the energy of the universe itself, but this body was very different. Also, consuming food, while new and strange to him, wasn’t a complete novelty anymore, not after he’d eaten various Salvadoran delicacies and had consumed an entire piece of Elena and Alessandro’s lush chocolate wedding cake while at their reception.
Belshegar doubted he’d be able to locate any wedding cake here, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find something interesting to break his fast.
As he walked along the main street, he noticed many cars were leaving their parking places and heading down the hill. True, evening was approaching, but he was still startled to see the way Jerome appeared to empty as the day wound down to a close.
A few signs of life remained, however. Several doors down from the spot where he stood, music spilled out through a door open to the warm, mild evening, the sound of the instrument known as a guitar accompanying a woman’s voice, pure and sweet.
There was no music in his world, but he’d always been entranced to hear it during those times when he visited Elena in her attic bedroom and she would play something for him — quietly, of course, so as not to wake her father and grandmother — on her computer.
This was even better, though, because he could somehow tell this was no recording, but someone singing and playing just a few yards away from him.
His feet moved forward as though pulled by an invisible force. When he drew closer, he saw that the establishment where the woman was playing appeared to be some kind of wine-tasting room. He’d drunk a little champagne at Elena’s reception so he wouldn’t look out of place and still didn’t quite know what to think of it, but if he had to consume wine to fit in while he listened to the woman sing, then he would do what he must.
The place was larger than he’d thought, narrow but stretching at least sixty or seventy feet lengthwise, terminating in an enormous window that framed a truly spectacular view of the valley below and a series of red rock bluffs and purple mountains off in the distance. He noted that most of the tables were occupied, giving the lie to all the cars he’d seen driving away only a moment earlier.
Had these people decided to stay so they wouldn’t miss out on the musical performance?
Even as that thought passed through his mind, he found his gaze drawn to the source of the sweet sounds that had drifted through the tasting room’s open door.
The woman sat on a simple wooden stool and held a steel-string guitar in her lap. Her hair was pale gold, falling in soft waves past her shoulders, while her eyes were as blue as the sky must have been at noon, hours before he arrived in Jerome. Long, skillful fingers plucked at the metal strings.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d seen in this world…or any other.
“Can I get you something?” the man standing behind the bar asked.
Belshegar had been so focused on the woman’s singing that he couldn’t help startling a little at the sudden intrusion of a deeper voice. Hoping he hadn’t made too much of a fool of himself, he said, “Yes…a glass of wine, please.”
The man pushed a piece of paper toward him, one that seemed to include all the tasting room’s offerings. “This is what we have available by the glass.”
Although Belshegar had never been taught to formally read, his time with Elena had exposed him to the English language and the letters used to form its words, so he was able to grasp the contents of the wine menu well enough. Or rather, while he had no idea what a “chardonnay” or a “GSM blend” was, he could make out the words “white” and “red.”
The champagne he’d drunk at Elena’s wedding reception had been white. While he still couldn’t say whether he’d cared for it, at least a white wine was something halfway familiar.
“The white blend, please,” he said politely, and the man nodded, then went to fetch a bottle from one of the coolers behind the bar. As he was pouring the glass, Belshegar added, “Who is she?” and inclined his head toward the spot where the blonde woman sat on her stool and continued to sing and play.
“Brianna McAllister,” the bartender supplied. “She plays here every other Wednesday.”
Brianna. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. Belshegar knew he probably shouldn’t be thinking of her that way, not when he wasn’t human and shouldn’t have been able to feel even the slightest ounce of attraction toward a mortal.
