The breeze from the window had died. The white curtains lay like a painting until the small fan spilled over them. I knelt in the hot room with the only sound the whir of the fan and the small tick it made every time it came to the end of its cycle.
I stroked the hairbrush through his hair, and the stroke ended long before I got to the end of the hair. I'd had hair down to my butt once upon a time when I was about fourteen. But Nathaniel's hair was knee length. If he'd been a woman, I'd have said his hair fell like a dress around him. The hair lay in a soft, silken pile beside his body so it wouldn't brush the wound. I lifted the hair in my arms, and it was like holding something alive. The hair poured through my hands with a sound like dry water, a rushing noise.
I had enough trouble taking care of shoulder-length hair. I couldn't imagine the amount of effort that just washing it must take. I was either going to have to divide the hair to either side and actually get up and move from side to side, or sweep the hair back behind his head so it spilled across the bed. I voted for that.
I pulled his hair behind his back and spilled it behind his head. He moved his head as if snuggling into the pillow, but other than that made no movement and said nothing.
"How you doing?" I asked.
"I'm fine," he said. His voice was soft, neutral, almost empty.
"Talk to me, Nathaniel," I said.
"You don't like it when I talk to you."
I leaned over him, smoothing the hair back so I had a clear view of his face. "That's not true."
He turned his face enough to look up at me. "Isn't it?"
I leaned back from that direct gaze. "It's not you talking I mind, Nathaniel. It's your choice of topics."
"Tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it."
"I can tell you what not to say," I said.
"What?" he asked.
"Don't talk about pornographic movies, sadomasochism, sex in general." I thought about it for a second or two. "That hits the usual things you say to piss me off."
He laughed. "I don't know what else to talk about."
I started combing his hair across the bed. The stroke was firm and flowing, then I actually had to pick the hair up to finish the stroke. The fan hit me with an armful of hair, and the hair spilled around my face in a vanilla-scented cloud that tickled my face and neck.
"Talk about anything, Nathaniel. Talk about yourself."
"I don't like to talk about myself."
"Why not?" I asked.
He raised up enough to look at me. "You talk about yourself."
"Okay." Then I didn't know what to say. I just suddenly couldn't think of where to start. I smiled. "Good point, forget I said it."
The phone rang, and I gave a little yip. Nervous? Who me? It was Dolph. "Anita?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"Franklin Niley, unless it's a different guy with the same name, is an art dealer. He specializes in mystical artifacts. He's not picky about how he gets them, either."
"How not picky?" I asked.
"He's based out of Miami. The cops there would like to tie him to at least half a dozen homicides but don't have enough proof. Every town he visits on business, people disappear or turn up dead. Chicago P.D. nearly got him on the death of a wiccan high priestess last year, but the witness went into a mysterious coma and hasn't come out yet."
"Mysterious coma?" I made it a question.
"The doctors think it was magic of some kind, but you know how hard that is to prove."
"What do you have on his associates?"
"One hasn't been with him long, a psychic named Howard Grant, young, no criminal record. There's a black bodyguard, Milo Hart. He's got a second-degree black belt in karate and has been in the pen once for attempted murder. He's been beating people up for Niley since he got out of prison five years ago. The third is Linus Beck. He's been in twice. Once for assault with a deadly, second time for murder."
"Lovely," I said.
"It gets better," Dolph said.
"Better?" I asked. "How much better can it get?"
"Beck's murder conviction was a human sacrifice."
I let that sink in for a second or two. "How was the victim killed?"
"Knife wound," Dolph said.
I told him about the body I'd just finished seeing.
"Direct attack by demons went out with the middle ages, Anita."
"They wanted to make it look like a troll attack."
"You've talked to them," he said.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"They wanted to threaten me," I said.
I heard papers rustling on the other end. "Why did they want to threaten you?"
I told Dolph almost everything. I also told him I couldn't prove a damn thing.
"I talked to a cop in Miami. He said that Niley admitted two murders to him, told him details, but not under Miranda and not useable in court. He likes to taunt."
"He thinks he's untouchable," I said.
"But the spirits say you're going to kill him."
"So his pet psychic says."
"When I put out the name and asked for info, police all over the country and out of it are willing to give me anything they got, if we can just nail this guy," Dolph said.
"A bad guy's, bad guy," I said.
"He's not above doing his own killing, Anita. At least two of the dead men down in Miami, they think were Frank's personal kills. You watch your ass like a son of a bitch. If you have anything that even looks like proof of a crime, call me."
"You don't have any jurisdiction here," I said.
"Trust me on this, Anita. You come up with some proof, and I can get you somebody down there with jurisdiction, ready and willing to put this guy away."
"He on the blue hit parade?"
"He's made a career out of breaking the law and has never seen the inside of a jail cell for more than twenty-four hours. A lot of people in a lot of states would like to see him gone."
"I'll see what I can do," I said.
"I don't mean dead, Anita. I mean arrested."
"I knew what you meant, Dolph."
He was quiet for a second. "I know you knew what I meant, but I thought I should say it, anyway. Don't kill anyone."
"Would I do something so illegal?"
"Don't start, Anita."
"Sorry. Thanks for all the info. It's more than I'd hoped for. After meeting him, I'm not exactly surprised by any of it. He is a very creepy guy."
"Creepy -¨C Anita, he's a hell of a lot more than creepy."
"You sound worried, Dolph."
"You're down there without a safety net, Anita. The cops are not your friends."
"That's an understatement," I said. "But the state cops are down here on the murder now."
"I can't come down there," Dolph said.
"I would never ask you to."
He was quiet so long that I said, "Dolph, you still there?"
"I'm here." He didn't sound happy. "You know how I told you not to kill anyone?"
"Yeah," I said.
"I'll deny this in court, but don't hesitate, Anita. If it comes down to him or you, make the right choice."
My mouth was hanging open. "Dolph, are you telling me to murder him if I get the chance?"
Dolph was quiet again. Finally, he said, "No, not murder, but I am saying don't let him get the drop on you. You do not want to be at this man's mercy, Anita. Some of the bodies they've found have been tortured. He's real creative about it."
"What's in that file that you haven't told me about, Dolph?"
"They found one man's head floating in his pool. There were no marks of a weapon, like the head had been pulled off. They never found the body. It all reads like that, Anita. Not just violent but weird shit."
"You going to post bail if I nail him and get caught?"
"You get caught, we never had this conversation."
"Mum's the word," I said.
"Watch your back, Anita. Niley doesn't have any limits. That's what all this paperwork means. He's a total fucking sociopath, Anita, and Beck and Hart are the same thing."
"I'll be careful, Dolph. I promise."
"Don't be careful, be ruthless. I don't want to be identifying what's left of your body after he gets through with it."
"You trying to scare me, Dolph?"
"Yeah," he said, then he hung up.
I hung the phone up and sat on the bed in the hot, hot room, and I was afraid. I was suddenly more afraid than I had been since we got here. Dolph didn't spook easily. I'd never heard him like that, not about anything or anybody.
Nathaniel touched my leg. "What's wrong?"
I shook my head. I couldn't shake the bad feeling. Dolph, Mr. Law and Order, had encouraged me to kill someone. Unprecedented. The police were telling me to break the law. Too weird. But underneath the wonderment of it was the fear, a fine, trembling sense of unease. Demons. I didn't like demons. They didn't give a shit about silver bullets or much of anything else. Richard felt strong in his faith. I envied him that. Iwas having a crisis of faith right now. I mean, I was sleeping with the undead and had cheated on one lover with another. I also had a few more kills to my credit than the last time I'd been touched by the demonic. I wasn't feeling particularly pure and holy right now. You needed that against demons. You needed surety.
Nathaniel laid his head on my thigh. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
I stared down at the naked man with his head in my lap. No, if I ran up against a demon now, my house was made of glass, and nothing throws stones like the demonic. They know just where to hit so that the whole damn thing comes crashing down around your ears. I was really not in the mood to find out how far from grace I'd actually fallen.