Page 4 of Demon Loved (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #5)

You are Bill Garrett, Belshegar reminded himself as he got out of the self-driving car that had brought him to Jerome. Bill Garrett.

He wasn’t sure why the voice had decided that would be his alias, although he supposed it was possibly because it contained some of the same letters and syllables as his true name when it was rendered in the English language.

Now he could only hope he’d answer to it if anyone ever addressed him that way.

How all the arrangements had been made, he wasn’t sure, but less than twenty-four human hours after he’d had that conversation with the voice, he was on the mortal plane, wearing the same face he’d put on to attend Elena’s wedding and reception.

It was a handsome enough face, he supposed, with a strong brow and chin and deep green eyes, topped by shaggy, shoulder-length, near-black hair, but it wasn’t his face.

When Loc had conjured the human appearance for him that first time, Belshegar asked where the demon lord had gotten it from.

“A bit of this, a bit of that,” Loc had replied almost carelessly. “Actors, mostly. People might comment that you remind them of someone, although the face I’ve given you isn’t a copy of anyone in particular.”

Would it be amusing to be mistaken for someone famous?

Probably not, he decided, especially since the voice had admonished him to do whatever he could to avoid attracting notice.

He had been given a task to perform, and while the voice hadn’t provided him with a precise timeline, Belshegar knew he should work his hardest to acquire the artifacts it wanted and then deliver them before anyone on the human plane began to think there might be something just a little strange about “Bill Garrett.”

He would be staying at a place called The Grand Hotel, an imposing structure perched near the very top of Jerome, which appeared to be built into the side of a hill.

The buildings he’d spied as the self-driving car brought him here had looked quite old, if not quite as old as many of the structures in Santa Fe, where he’d seen ancient adobe homes and shops that appeared almost as though they’d sprouted in place, like mushrooms, rather than been built with human hands.

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.

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.