Over Night - Julie Steimle (philippa perry book .TXT) 📗

Night Stalker will get him. They can smell avarice on a man and, with this case in the news they might seek him out to see if you are right.”

Teris stood up. “I hope so. Then the killings will stop.”

His father nodded, smiling. “Yes. Once the Stalkers find their prey, the killings will stop.”

“And justice will be served,” Teris said. He turned and glared at Mr. Felap who was talking to reporters at the door.

They stepped from their chairs, walking into the aisle. Looking over, they knew a gauntlet of accusations and gossiping newsmen would be ready to tear them apart. Just as much as Brein Amon people loved to drink, they loved publicly humiliating the wealthy more. He was now food for the beasts, at least until real justice would be served. For the first time Teris was grateful for the demons of the land. In a way, the natural magic of their world had a way of evening out the incongruities of life. He and his father walked over to meet the reporters.

Out of the doors, they stepped down to the road, already assaulted with smug men and their pens. Photographers and sketch artists popped in and around, flashing them with their cameras and scribbling out caricatures of their figures. Luckily for them, they had a car waiting on the curb.

“What were you drinking at the party when the Stalker attacked?” one reporter shouted.

Teris bushed past him, making a face. The man followed him, joined by three others.

“You were telling horror stories that night and let your over active imagination get away with you, didn’t you?” another said.

“How do you feel about all the other Night Stalker sightings, proving your case wrong?”

Teris clenched his teeth, feeling sick again. He stumbled, leaning on his father for support. Several took pictures of it. Many jotted down the act in their reports, already claiming that Teris had come drunk to the trial.

Over the annoying questions and the din of chatter that accompanied it with the voyeuristic crowd, Teris hear Mr. Felap’s report to one man. He was grinning smugly, glancing at the fop.

“Of course I will prosecute. That boy needs to learn that slander is inappropriate in Kolden. Me—kill my partner? As if I’d ever stoop to such a thing. Mr. Grae was like a brother to me.” His eyes were cold and vindictive.

Teris clenched his stomach, feeling his entire insides wrench. His father’s eyes grew wide. He held his son up, guiding him faster to the car.

They passed by several people, including Dendi who looked worried and somewhat disappointed in Teris.

Another on the street hissed aloud something more alarming that Mr. Felap’s threats. “Did you hear? The patriarch has sent off for military demon hunters to get rid of the two Night Stalkers that have been seen up the hill.”

Teris’s ears perked. His father stopped his progression to the car.

Several reporters turned also, hearing this with triumph.

Mr. Felap smiled, breathing more freely and walking down the steps also. “That is very good news.”

“He would think that,” Teris’s father muttered.

Hunching over, Teris groaned.

“He looks sick,” a reporter said, actually sounding humanly concerned for once.

Others looked also. Dendi peered over, almost ready to help Teris out, but not quite.

But heads turned again when a policeman ran in, grinning and leading a group of five strapping young soldiers. The men in blue walked with a confident gait, each wearing sunglasses and carrying packs on their backs. One of the soldiers was barely a man, fair haired, young and lanky. He carried a wide non-military sword with his other demon hunting paraphernalia. He also had a crossbow with wooden stakes.

“Make way for the military demon hunters!” the policeman shouted.

Already the crowds cheered. Dendi peered in, looking highly interested, forgetting his friend entirely. In fact, the entire crowd did make way, and they followed the men up to the patriarch of Kolden’s home where they would be given the details of their assignment in full. Only Teris and his father held back, standing on the courthouse steps with a few stragglers that worked there.

The judge walked down the steps with his aides. He peered over also, lifting his eyebrows in interest.

Teris collapsed.

“Son!” Mr. Lamarc crouched over, grasping to prop him up.

The judge and his aides rushed over.

“He looks pale,” an aide said, shaking her head.

Nodding the judge reached over to heft him up. “Better get him home. The shock was too much for him.”

Teris looked up at him, feeling weaker by the second. “Why…why did you rule against me?”

Sighing, the judge managed to help him onto his feet with his father. “I am sorry, but you just did not have enough evidence, and Mr. Felap is a powerful man. Even if I believed you, I cannot rule in your favor with what you had.”

“Now more people will die,” Teris said. “Even the Stalkers. Justice won’t be served at all now.”

Looking at Teris’s father, the judge drew in a breath and said, “It is very hard to kill a Night Stalker. And even if those military men are successful, more will rise up. They always do until the murderer is caught. Justice has a way of taking what it will.”

They helped Teris into his seat. He only shook his head and groaned, looking blearily at the judge. “No. Brein Amon is famous for injustice. Mr. Felap will get away with it. He will. And—”

Teris felt a sharp shooting pain go down his arms. Shaking, his lips went white, silencing him.

“Get him home and in bed soon,” the judge said to Mr. Lamarc.

Teris’s father nodded. He closed the open door and rushed to the other side, urging their chauffeur to hurry home.

*

All the servants scrambled under orders to get Teris’s room made for a sick bed. His sheets were turned down and his curtains pulled closed. Drinks of sodium bicarbonate were brought and they set them on trays next to his bed. Mr. Lamarc directed it all, sending his wife off to weep in a separate room. He oversaw everything, resting in a chair in the far shadowy corner of his son’s chambers.

Teris opened his eyes, feeling his heart make one last beat and then stop entirely. He gasped for air, staring at the chandelier above his bed. A shuddering breath followed. Trembling, his arms felt like long ropes were pulling them from his fingernails, straight to the walls. Waiting for death, Teris stared open-eyed up into the darkness.

But death did not come. In fact, the pain seemed to increase, feeling more like he was cramped and needed to stretch his hands and arms. Jumping out from his bed, Teris howled, pulling his head back and feeling the skin under his arms stretch. The skin between his fingers pulled tight, his fingertips extending from a charley horse to relieve the twisted up muscle pain he felt all over. Then in one relieving stretch, Teris staggered to the vanity. Parting hard, he stared at the combs and hairbrush set on the stand.
He looked up at his reflection in the mirror, trying to get a grasp on himself. What gazed back was not a face he recognized.

Silver white hair, eyes a silver gray, skin white as death, and fangs. Teris shuddered, pulling back. He saw his arms were longer. His fingers were long, extending at least a foot each and bending with bony joints with his thumb clawed like a bat’s wing. Skin, which had been nothing but aristocratic webbing in the mildest sense before, was now so grown and spread between every finger and even the side of his torso.
His shirt was off. Apparently the servants had partially undressed him. But why? Did they know this would happen to him? Did they know this creature, this demon is what he would become?

He was a Night Stalker. Teris recognized the form from stories he had heard since childhood. Up until that very second, he had thought they were beasts that came from the near by forests like so many other demons did.

“Son?”

Teris turned, gasping and grasping the edge of the vanity table.

His father emerged from the shadows. Or at least it had sounded somewhat like his father. The figure that came out of the shadows was as sickly looking as he was, with wings and all.

“Father?” Teris gasped. The figure did have a semblance of his own father. Watching the demon approach, he still carried himself like Mr. Lamarc Senior.

Nodding, the Night Stalker before him said, “It is me. As you now know that you too are a Stalker like I am.” His voice was tinny—sounding somewhat as if he was speaking through metal. “And I am sure this is a very unpleasant surprise for you.”

Teris blinked and then drew in a breath. “Un…no…I…Father, this is more than unpleasant. This is impossible! How can I be a demon?”

His father sighed, tilting his head.

“How can you be a demon?” Teris asked feeling his grief overwhelm him.

“I always was a demon, as you and your sisters are,” his father said.

Teris felt sick. He shook his head. “And mother?”

Smiling, his father walked closer. “She is a normal woman. She does not know—and neither do your sisters.” He paused. “In fact, I was hoping that you would remain dormant. If Mr. Felap had been punished for his crime, you would have never known that you were a Stalker and you would have had a normal life.”

“Dormant?” Teris turned, glancing back at the mirror. His reflection was horrifyingly striking. In vain way, he never saw a better-looking demon in his life. “Are you saying that I would have never become this if I had not seen that murder?”

His father shrugged. “Possibly. I did not witness a murder when I awoke from dormancy, but then my sense of indignity had stirred up the Stalker within when a dear friend of mine was murdered for money.”

Teris stared. His stomach growled, twisting in knots. His mouth started to salivate.

“You can smell it too.” His father nodded. “Avarice.”

Teris could smell it. His insides ached to devour it. And justice, yes, he wanted to punish Mr. Felap for killing Mr. Grae. Yet his old self echoed back to him all the horror stories he had heard about Night Stalkers. They were evil, or so the stories said. Was he now evil?

The fop swallowed. “Am I to become a killer then?”

Lifting his head back, his father had a knowing look on his face. “You are what I am, nature’s policemen. It will be justice you will deliver tonight.”

A tremor ran through him. Yes, justice would be delivered tonight. Teris walked to his window. His father smiled.

“Are you coming with me?” Teris looked back.

His father had walked to the door, his arms suddenly shrinking, as did the flaps of skin between his fingers and side. Turning, he said, “No. I must make an appearance at the party at the Halestrome’s. We must have an alibi if we are to maintain our lifestyle. I will