Along Came a Demon Read Online Free PDF

slumped lower in the chair. “Right.”
    “ We thought the same when we found her, but no bruising to indicate she slipped and knocked herself out, or anyone held her under. Looks like it was her heart, Tiff.”
    I nodded distractedly. Mike perched his butt on the edge of his desk. “It’s not like you to jump to conclusions, Tiff.”
    “ I know,” I said, wriggling my shoulders. I straightened up. “But I am positive of one thing, Mike. Lindy Marchant has … had a son. His name is Lawrence Marchant, and he’s out there somewhere.”
    A roll of his eyes, a light shake of the chin, and Mike forced a smile. “Okay, Tiff. I’ll make those calls and get back to you. Okay?”
    “ Thanks, Mike.” I gave him a bright smile as I got to my feet and waved my hand bye.
    As I walked back through the Squad Room with its underlying aroma of male bodies and inadequately applied deodorant, someone in the far corner went woo woo and someone else did a lousy impression of a creaking door. I ignored them. A lot of PDs occasionally use psychics, so you’d think they would appreciate the work I did for them instead of making fun of me. But that’s life in any police division; they get their fun where and when they can, because what they deal with most of the time is far from amusing.
    Mike and his crew called me the Ice Queen, which had nothing to do with regal bearing or giving them the cold shoulder, because neither applied.
    My silver-white hair hangs to my hips when loose, but can be a pain because of its weight, so I generally wear it in one long, fat braid. Someone told me my eyes are icy-blue and my tip-tilted nose makes me look aloof. I don’t accentuate my wide mouth with lip color, as it stands out too much against my pale skin. And I am not a habitual smiler; my expression veers toward neutral.
    So I was the Ice Queen. I was okay with the title. Rather they called me that to my face than repeated aloud what they said behind my back.

    I sat in my Subaru, thinking.
    I didn’t know a thing about Lawrence, but I had no reason to ask Lindy. I thought Mike would give me some plausible reason why Lawrence was not named in the newspaper, something fairly innocuous, and I could go back home and get rid of Lindy. Did she lie to me? Shades do lie, and they can become confused. I think they cannot always distinguish between their reality, dreams or cravings when they were alive, and it becomes mixed up in their minds. Did Lindy want a child she never had? But she was newly dead; surely she had not deteriorated to such a degree in a brief time. So, either she lied to me, or the neighbors lied, or … I really did not want to think about a third possibility.
    The alternative to Lindy lying was going to give me heartburn.
    Otherwordly. Not human.
    Dead people are not the only things I see.
    Why can Lynn and I see demons as they really are? I have no idea. I’m pretty sure other people see normal, human men.
    I gave my wrist an experimental shake, making my bracelet jingle, making sure it was there. Every tiny charm was a crucifix and each a different metal. The gold and silver made the bracelet pretty, but I bought it for the charms of metal alloys. I wore the bracelet on my right wrist and a watch with a gray steel band on my left. A stainless-steel rosary hung around my neck. We’d never had a problem with the Otherworldy in Clarion, but Lynn thought a lot of nasty stuff in other parts of the world, of the inexplicable kind, could be attributed to them. As far as I knew, at least one demon lived in Clarion, so I took precautions.
    Everything I knew about the Otherworldy I got from Lynn, although knew was the wrong word. She spent years researching them, but it was really guesswork gathered from myth, unexplained sightings and unsolved mysteries. They can move like the wind, their hearing is acute and they are far stronger than we humans. Although they are fine with pure metals, they don’t tolerate alloys well. Hence my watch