Demonbred or Decay in the Family Tree: Sunspinners, #5

DEMONBRED

My mind stopped at the sound of a demon hissing at me but my body didn’t. It had enough instinct to keep moving. I dove through the open door of my car into the seat and banged the door closed. I reached for the lock on the inside of the door at the same moment he grabbed the handle on the outside. He was faster. The door swung open, letting in foul odors, demon odors. Claw-edged fingers stretched out from its scaly green hand and touched my left arm. Curled around it.

With my right hand I jammed the key in the ignition and turned it. The demon heard the engine rev and hesitated, perhaps unsure of the source of the noise or perhaps surprised by the car lights flashing on. Its hesitation gave me just enough time to push the gear from park to drive and tromp down on the gas pedal and swing the steering wheel one-handed and swerve away from the curb. I expected the demon to put its own safety first and jump away.

There is so much I don’t know about them. This one wrapped both its hands around the door handle and clung. I almost stopped, which I would have done for a human, even one trying to attack me. But damn its demon green hide, it wasn’t human. I squealed down the center of the street with a demon bouncing along on the outside of my car.

A car came toward me from the opposite direction and some reflex action made me grab the wheel in both hands and do a sharp turn into a side street to my right while the other car screeched to the opposite curb.

The demon swung around to face me, its eyes staring through the driver side window, its body stretched along the exterior of the car, its clawed hands scratching against my door. Clawed feet banged against the glass of the back seat window, scraping the glass. It hissed and I screamed and it swung out, hands clinging, feet flying in an arc away from me, then whipping back to slam against my car.

I jerked the wheel, veered from side to side trying to shake it off and at the same time avoid striking parked cars at the curbs, my mind racing and fear blocking out any clear thoughts. Yes, I had one thought. It screamed through me. Help! Help! Help!

And then the demon went sailing away. In my rearview mirror I saw it sail into shrubbery across the street and disappear.

Good. I had won round one. I kept telling myself I was safe, slowed the car and concentrated on driving home.

That’s when I felt hot sticky liquid running down my left arm. And knew immediately what it was. Blood. Bad. My blood. Really bad.

CHAPTER 1

We stared at an old grave in an old graveyard at a small town on the Oregon coast while the wind off the Pacific tried to knock us over. The town consisted of empty summer houses near the beach and occupied houses near the main street. I crouched down in front of the grave, took out my phone and snapped a photo of the aged inscription.

Got a visitor, Charley said. With the tourists and summer people gone for the winter we must be the curiosity of the day.

I stood and looked past him toward the road. There was now a car parked in front of ours, the only two cars pulled onto the parking strip at the side of the road.

A woman walked toward us across the damp grass, picking her way carefully and clutching the front of her raincoat to keep it from blowing open. She wasn't wandering slowly, gazing at graves, she was walking directly toward us, shoulders hunched against the wind. And calling. She had one hand curled at the side of her mouth to form a megaphone. The wind carried away whatever she was saying.

Beside me Charley said, I am not here.

You are, too, I argued and then gave up. Arguing with Charley never accomplishes anything.

The woman reached us and stopped. Hello! Are you looking for a grave?

Found it, I said, and pointed to it.

The woman’s gray hair was trimmed and permed close to her head, but even so the wind did a good job of disarranging it. She gave me a nod, then bent over and read the inscription. Elizabeth Royal, died 1929. Oh, an ancestor? She straightened and smiled at us. Are you doing a family tree? I belong to a genealogy group and isn't it fascinating? Is this your ancestor or your husband's? she asked, and turned toward Charley. Leaned toward Charley. Squinted in the gray light and peered into the shadows cast by the hood on his raincoat. The top of his face was hidden by large sunglasses and the rest of his face was wrapped in a wool scarf.

I don't have a husband, I said, and hoped to God she would go back where she came from because neither of us would like what would happen next.

Nice to meet you. Charley held out his gloved hand.

She looked at it, thought a moment, and extended her hand to touch his fingers in a brief shake.

Not brief enough. Charley loosened his scarf and pushed back the hood on his coat. I looked the other way.

The woman shrieked. His head! Where is his head?

Charley's dark glasses floated in the air above his coat collar. The empty hood hung down at the back.

Whose head? I tried to keep my voice steady. I fight between laughing and crying when Charley pulls this stunt.

His! His! Her words were a jumble of sobs as she pointed at Charley.

There is no one here but you and me.

I heard him! I did! I felt his hand. A headless man is standing right next to you!

Oh, all right, if you can see him, go ahead and sock him.

To my disappointment, she did not. Instead, she turned and ran away, stumbling among the gravestones and markers, her shoes slipping on the wet grass. When she reached the road she fell against her car.

Why did you tell her to sock me? Charley pulled up his hood, straightened his glasses and rearranged his long scarf.

If the woman had looked back she would have seen the dark hood once again sticking up above his shoulders.

Because you deserve it. I snapped another photo of the grave. There, I think that's it. Charley, I was going to drive into town to see if there is a city hall where I can examine records.

The woman was beyond hearing, all sound carried off by the wind. Only her lunge into her car made it clear she was hysterical. That and the lurch of the car, first to one road edge and then back to the other. It zigzagged away and around a bend and out of sight.

Somehow I suspect she is phoning friends this very minute. Okay, time to leave.

Phoning friends about what? He followed me back to our car, walking slowly, occasionally pausing to read the marks on a headstone.

About shaking hands with a zombie in the cemetery, I said.

I am not a zombie!

You know it, I know it, but no one beyond our family believes in invisible people.

They believe in zombies?

Oh damn, do you suppose she read off our license plate number to whoever she phoned? I think we should drive back to the highway and turn north.

Charley gave a deep sigh and then he did what he knew he had to do. I could not be pulled over by a policeman who would want answers about the man sitting in the passenger seat of my car with his hood pulled forward and his face hidden by glasses and scarf.

While I drove to the main highway Charley unbuckled his seat belt, climbed over the front seat into the back, and removed all his clothes. He is good at undressing quickly in a small space because he is bad about behaving properly and thereby puts himself in situations that require a lot of speedy correcting.

A few minutes later his clothing was a neatly folded pile on the back seat and Charley was a shivering complainer in the front seat, busy turning up the car heater.

I could hear him rubbing himself briskly, trying to speed up his circulation. Fortunately, it was light enough in the car to keep him invisible although I could see the outline of his bare feet in the shadow under the dashboard.

There was only one thing to possibly say.

Don't say it, Elaine.

I said it, anyway. It's your own fault, Charley.

The stunt with that poor woman was completely his fault. Being invisible isn't. Or is it? That was why we had driven to the cemetery on the Oregon coast to trace ancestors, not because Charley cared about genealogy but because, after three hundred years, he was still searching for an answer.

There are five immortal relatives, including Charley, who live with me. Gizelle and Paul are eternally in their twenties, both of them dark haired and beautiful and madly in love with each other. The other two, Walter and Edith, are elderly. Edith thinks they all may be related, either as siblings or cousins of different generations, but no one knows for sure.

The five of them turn invisible in light and visible in darkness and they do not know why. Their one clear three hundred year old memory is of a creature tied to a stake, surrounded by flames and screaming a curse at them. The curse was meant to cause them to suffer through their remaining lifetimes. Apparently it went wrong. Instead of suffering through short lives they became immortal, which they did not at first realize, and invisible in daylight, which they discovered immediately. No one knows the exact date when they were cursed, but what we have learned recently is that the screamer was an earthdemon.

Actually, what we learned recently is that there really are creatures called earthdemons and what we know for a fact is that some of them exist in Seattle. We have had too many encounters with them to pretend they are hallucinations.

We overheard enough during those encounters to know the demon screamer's curse went wrong and the current demons know only part of the result. The demons know that instead of making the humans’ short lives painful, the original intent, the curse made their lives neverending. They do not know that the five sunspinners become invisible in bright light.

I was driving with my eyes on the road and my thoughts on our search for answers. The traffic was light going north this time of year on the narrow Oregon road near the Pacific Ocean. Not only were weekend cottages empty, out-of-state tourist traffic was gone for the winter.

The rear view mirror did a slight swivel toward me.

We have company, Charley said.

In the mirror I had a clear view of a police car. I checked the speedometer. I am not speeding.

Do you think the woman in the cemetery reported us?

Something about a headless man and the only other car parked by the cemetery being a hatchback with a Washington license plate?

And the police took her seriously?

Or are having a very slow day.

Should I climb in back? Charley asked.

If he pulls us over. Be sure your clothes are neatly folded on the seat. If he asks about them I can tell him I’m dropping them off at the Goodwill.

You’re doing what! Huh. Good thing I didn’t wear my Stetson and my leather jacket.

The police car followed us for another ten miles. The sky was still bright. On a warm summer day Charley could slip out of my car while the officer was busy getting out of his car. They always take a few minutes to call in their location and the license number of the vehicle being stopped. And then they approach the vehicle very slowly, in case it contains a crazy with a gun. I know all this because I watch too much TV.

Stepping into the gravel edged road might be a bit hard on Charley’s bare feet but he could pick his way a short distance along the road and wait. Then it wouldn’t matter if the policeman decided to open all the car doors to do a search.

Today was a cold autumn day. Charley might not be seen but he might be heard sneezing.

And then what would happen? While I worried my way through that idea the officer solved it for me by driving past, giving me a glance, and then turning off at the next intersection.

Ah, that’s good, sweetie. Now we can get back to researching your family, Charley said.

Past generations of my family, normal folks with normal lifespans, were unable to research their ancestors. Of course they tried. Believe me, if you ever find yourself fated to be the protector of people who are immortal as well as invisible in sunlight, you will want explanations. But in the past travel was difficult and letters slow. Information was both unreliable and hard to find.

Now, with the internet as an instant resource, Charley decided the time had come to learn why this had happened.

I know the family history back to Elizabeth Royal and nothing of it provides answers. Charley wants answers. By default, I am the designated driver.

He tried on-line research for an Elizabeth Royal, found the name everywhere, narrowed his search to Oregon because he knew she had been born there and found a date of death that was possible for her. He didn’t know her date of death, only her birth date. But none of the records he could access online verified the date of birth for the body in the Oregon grave. Charley pointed out that it might be a different Elizabeth Royal in that grave, which was why we drove to the cemetery to find the grave. Even though a birth date did not appear in any online record, chances were high that a gravestone would have dates.

And it did.