Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King by Morgan Blayde Read Free Book Online

secrets.”
     
                                                        —Caine Deathwalker
     
     
    Vivian had fallen off the grid, but not far.  Turns out, she’d purchased a Civil War era Gingerbread Victorian overlooking the L.A. River, in Lincoln Heights.  I drove up there.  A few questions at the local meat market—and a hundred dollar bill—turned up the street address of a new, female customer that took regular delivery of fresh animal blood. 
    At that address, I discovered a three-story, green Play Dough colored building sad shape.  Part of a chimney was broken and a front porch column slanted out of alignment.  The porch flower beds were brashly crimson.  The property was enclosed by a rough-hewn wall with gaps in the mortar.  A black, wrought iron gate crossed the sidewalk entrance to the property.  There was a mailbox by the outer wall that smelled new; no name, just a bat stenciled on it.
    I parked and went through the gate, cross a yard, up to the wooden steps of the porch.  A few steps were in need of replacing.  I looked up at the door.  The rectangular window panes were dark with dust.  A long metal and glass lantern hung over the entrance.  Intentional or not, the amber-glassed lantern had all the appearance of a death trap waiting to happen.  The brass door-knockers looked like they wanted to bite any hand foolish enough to knock.
    Hearing banging sounds off to the side, I went around the base of the elevated porch and found a ground level door in its side standing wide open.  There were concrete stairs going under the porch, down into a basement.  Light down there gave evidence I wasn’t just spinning my wheels.  Someone was home.  I went downstairs, my hand on a side rail.  As nearing the bottom step, I heard arguing voices.
    “Vivian, you have to listen to me.  The Slayers aren’t going to ask you back, not here, not anywhere.  You only got in years ago under my watch because I’m your grandfather.  Now that I’ve retired…”
    “Why did you retire, so suddenly?  Just couldn’t wait to screw up my life?”
    “I have cancer.  If I hadn’t left, they’d have noticed already and forced me to step down.”
    “Cancer?  And you’re only now telling me?”
    “You’ve had a great deal on your mind.  I didn’t want you to drop your life to take care of me.  I can pay people for that.  I want to go with an easy mind, knowing you’re going to be okay.  That’s why pushed you toward Deathwalker.  He’s the real power in the city.  If the Slayers ever go after him, he will destroy them easily.  I want that power on your side.  That’s why I invited him here in a rather round-about way.”
    “Ah, so that’s who’s loitering on my stairs.”
    I went down, into the open.  “And here I thought I was being quiet.”
    “Dhampyr, remember.  I can hear your heartbeat as fifty yards.”  She looked beautiful as ever, white-marble skin, raven-wing hair, her very kissable mouth somewhat pouty, painted crimson red.  She turned dark eyes on her grandfather, handing him a pipe wrench.  “You keep working on the plumbing.  I’ll make us some lunch.” 
    She crossed an open expanse of concrete floor.  She stomped past a washer and dryer, and up some wooden stairs to another part of the house.  In that she wore a crop top and very short shorts, I was forced to ogle until she went out of sight.  What incredible legs, and that ass...
    I turned back to Carson.  As usual, the ex-slayers was unarmed.  The vibe he put out suggested that ordinary weapons couldn’t threaten him.  Strength seeped from his pores, the scent of green magic, of freshly turned earth and the rank decay of autumn detritus.  And, yes, my dragon nose smelled a hint of death, his cancer.  He still had a good bit of time.  The disease had yet to alter his appearance.  He was exactly as I remembered: steel-gray hair, a clean-shaved, wrinkled