The Demon Road Trilogy: The Complete Collection: Demon Road; Desolation; American Monsters

But she gradually wrapped her arms round Imelda and hugged her back, and she didn’t even notice the tears that were spilling off her cheeks and soaking through Imelda’s blouse. She felt Imelda cry, and realised she was crying herself. This one hug was the warmest, most sincere physical contact she had ever experienced, and she didn’t want it to ever end.

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RAIN MINGLED WITH THE tears on her face as Amber got into the SUV.

Milo had parked it round the back of Imelda’s apartment building. They didn’t want Amber in plain view. They didn’t want her walking across the sidewalk for a few seconds because that was a risk they couldn’t afford to take. Their paranoia was affecting Amber. She waited until Milo had the back door open, and then she ran through the heat and the rain, practically dived in. Milo threw a blanket over her and closed the door.

He got in the front, started the engine, and as the SUV was pulling out on to the street Amber realised she hadn’t said goodbye to Imelda, and a sliver of anguish pierced her heart.

She made sure she wasn’t about to cry, and then pulled the blanket back.

The SUV’s exterior may have needed a wash, but the interior was clean and smelled of polish. Milo struck her as the type to maintain his vehicle in perfect running order, and she realised that she wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the dirt and the dust on the outside were nothing more than camouflage.

They drove without speaking for five minutes. Amber resisted the urge to speak. She wanted Milo to get uncomfortable in the silence. When the clock on the dash showed 8pm, she sat up, but kept the blanket wrapped round her head like a shawl. To her irritation, he looked perfectly comfortable.

“So where are we going?”

Milo moved into another lane. “We’re going to see a friend of mine. He might be able to help.”

“Help how?”

“We’re hoping he’ll have some ideas on how to evade your parents.”

“You’re hoping? Imelda said there was a plan. Hoping for ideas does not sound like a plan. Who is he, this friend of yours?”

“His name’s Edgar Spurrier,” Milo said as they slowed at the lights. “He used to be a journalist. His investigations took him deeper and darker than any respectable news agency was willing to delve, so now he’s a freelance … something.”

“So he’s unemployed, basically.”

They started driving again. “He prefers the term ‘freelance something’.”

She frowned. “Was that a joke?”

Milo shrugged.

“Where does he live?”

“Miami.”

“That’s, like, three or four hours away. Why aren’t you more organised? Why isn’t he here? Or why can’t you call him? I’d loan you my phone only, oh yeah, you destroyed it.”

“No phone calls, if we can help it,” said Milo, totally missing Amber’s subtle jibe.

“I have a new plan,” she said, sitting forward. “Turn around. Take me to Montana. That’s where they film In The Dark Places, so I’d be able to just hang out, watch them film, and I have plenty of money now so I could afford to rent a cabin there until all this dies down.”

Milo glanced at her in the rear-view. “This isn’t going to die down.”

“No, I know that, I just—”

“I don’t think you do,” said Milo. “This isn’t a problem that’s going to go away, Amber. Your parents aren’t going to change their minds. Your life, as you knew it, is over. You have to leave behind your friends and family. There’s no going back.”

“I know that,” she insisted, though even she was aware how unconvincing she sounded.

An accident on the turnpike delayed them, forced them into a slow-moving convoy that crawled through Miami’s sprawl of Art-Deco architecture. The rain was heavier here. Neon lights bounced off the wet blackness of the asphalt. It would have been beautiful if Amber hadn’t shrunk away from every car that passed them, just waiting to see her parents’ faces staring out at her.

By the time they pulled up outside Edgar Spurrier’s crappy condo, it was past twelve and fully dark. The humidity closed in on Amber the moment she left the confines of the SUV. The rain eased off slightly, but the clouds were still heavy. Lightning flickered like a badly placed bulb and in the distance she heard thunder.

Edgar’s condo was not air-conditioned. A large fan hung from the ceiling and threatened to move the warm air around, but couldn’t work up the energy to do so with any degree of conviction.

Edgar himself was a tubby guy with blond hair that hung limply to his shoulders. He had an easy smile and nice twinkling eyes, and beneath his shorts his legs were surprisingly hairless. He handed Amber and Milo a glass of iced tea and took one for himself, then they all sat in his mess of a living room. Books and papers competed for space with notepads bursting with scribbles. No pizza boxes or empty beer bottles, though. Edgar may have been disorganised, but he was no slob.

“Milo has already briefed me on your situation,” Edgar said, settling back into his chair. “You’ve got yourself into what we in the trade call a pickle, Amber. Milo could have taken you to a dozen so-called occult experts around the country and they would have sent you away with useless advice and a headful of mumbo jumbo. Instead, he brought you to me, where deals with the Devil are something of a specialty. The Shining Demon is one of my particular areas of interest.”

He paused, and Amber felt the overwhelming need to fill the silence.

“Okay,” she said.

That seemed to satisfy him. “Now then,” Edgar continued, “your particular quandary is that running isn’t going to work.”

A bead of perspiration trickled down Amber’s spine. “It isn’t?”

“It isn’t,” said Edgar. “Your parents will eventually find you. It’s inevitable. I’m sure Milo will explain this to you later. They will find you and they will kill you. So you need to be proactive, am I right? You need to take the fight to your parents.”

Amber hesitated. “Uh yeah, except, I mean, I don’t want to actually fight them.”

“No, no,” said Edgar, “you don’t want to physically take them on, not at all. I’m not suggesting that for a minute. But you want to take the figurative fight to them, agreed?”

“I guess.”

“You can’t spend the rest of your life running. You can’t spend the rest of your life hiding. Because, if you do, the rest of your life will be very short indeed. So you need an alternative. If I were in your position, what would I do? I’ve given this a lot of thought since Milo approached me. A lot of thought. But only this morning did the obvious course of action occur to me.” He sat forward. “Amber, what you’re going to need to do is talk to the Shining Demon yourself.”

She blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“Not going to happen,” said Milo.

Edgar held up a hand. “Hear me out.”

“Not going to happen, Edgar.”

“Just hear me out, buddy, okay? Keep an open mind about this. There’s nothing we can do to stop her folks from wanting to eat her. There just isn’t. Consuming her flesh is the only way they can grow stronger, and the only way they can pay the tribute they owe. Because, don’t forget, they do owe that tribute.”

“We haven’t forgotten,” said Milo.

“So there’s nothing we can do there,” Edgar said, leaning back in his chair. “If you don’t want to talk to the Shining Demon, what does that leave us with? You could go after them. Take them out. Kill them before they kill you.”

“I don’t want to kill my parents,” Amber said, aghast.

“They want to kill you,” said Edgar. “You’re going to have to reconcile yourself with the facts here, Amber. This is life or death we’re talking about. It’s kill or be killed.”