Dark Hunt

by Richardson, Kim

  The clinic was a dark brown brick building with rows of neatly trimmed boxwood hedges. A large sign on the front lawn read, ALL SOULS REPAIR. With a name like that, you didn’t have to worry about the occasional wandering human thinking it was an ordinary healthcare establishment.

  Next to it was a Sensitive private cemetery and funeral home, and I guessed the clinic doubled as a morgue. All angel-born were cremated. Bones left in a grave were an invitation to demons and other supernatural creatures to possess and use. Gray headstones lined the small graveyard with fruit trees in full blossom, creating a colorful carpet of white and red petals on the ground. With my mind going to my parents’ headstone, I felt the whispers of tears at the backs of my eyes, but I quickly shook them off. I couldn’t afford a meltdown.

  Instead, I inhaled the sweet smell of apple and peach trees—a far cry from the demon sulfur that I was accustomed to—and calmed my breathing.

  A black Audi A5 was parked in the lot adjacent to the clinic. Jax leaned against his car, arms crossed, with the same familiar cocky smile on his face. Today he had on jeans that showed off muscled thighs and a loose T-shirt. His weapons belt peered from under his leather racer jacket.

  “Why are you smiling at me like that?” My stomach tensed as I walked past him, heading for the clinic’s front door. I winced as I felt a blister forming on my right heel from my new boots.

  “Nothing,” said Jax as he appeared next to me, smelling faintly of aftershave and soap. “I just didn’t know there was a pretty woman under all that demon ash and blood.”

  “God, you’re so aggravating.” My face burned. It felt damn good to be told I was pretty, even if I didn’t feel it. “Are you going to be like this while we work together?”

  “Like what? Charming?”

  “An ass.”

  Jax laughed as he opened the door for me. “Après vous,” he said in very good French, way too good to have been learned in school. Clearly, he spoke it fluently. If I had to guess, I’d say one of his parents was French. This Jax was full of surprises.

  I stepped into a cozy foyer with a small sitting area. A single wood desk, nuzzled between upright file cabinets, served as the front desk. Behind the desk was a dimly lit hallway with sterile walls and doors leading to a shadowed spot at the end of the hall. It was clearly a waiting room.

  Jax moved past me and hit a small brass call bell. He turned around with his back on the counter and crossed his legs looking smug.

  I looked everywhere but at his face. “How did you get this assignment, anyway? You must have seriously ticked off someone on the Council to be stuck babysitting me.”

  “I asked for it.”

  I met his steady gaze. “You asked for it? Why? You don’t look like you need the money?” He didn’t come across as someone who needed any extra cash, not with his expensive car and clothes, and his pretty, well-fed body.

  Jax looked at his boots, and for a second his expression went distant before looking back at me, his smile returning. After a moment of silence, it was clear he wasn’t going to answer. And it clearly made me want to know more. I would figure it out.

  I stared at the vertical blinds, but my eyes moved to the collection of tiny troll figurines with wisps of purple, green, orange, and blue hair behind Jax. “What can you tell me about the deaths that you couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me before I took the job—?”

  “Jaxson!”

  A door in the hallway burst open. A plump, twentysomething woman came rushing down the corridor, her face flushed and beaming. The buttons of her white lab coat were stretched to their limits around her large bosom. Her bejeweled glasses slipped on her greasy face as she hurried toward us.

  Jax pushed off the counter. “Hi, Pam. How are you? You look great.”

  Pam looked positively in heaven. I could see some drool forming on the corners of her mouth. She didn’t even notice I was there as she careened straight toward Jax. She lifted her arms as though she was about to hug him but pulled them back at the very last minute, looking half crazed.

  “Jax, they told me you were coming by today,” she panted, pushing up her glasses. Her eyes widened. “You want to see the body?” she said excitedly. “It’s still fresh.”

  I frowned, not liking the way she’d said that, like it was ripe enough to sink her teeth in. This one had spent way too much time manipulating formaldehyde.

  Jax gave an uncomfortable laugh and turned toward me. “Pam, this is Rowyn Sinclair. She’s a Hunter hired by the Council. She’s working the case with me.”

  The woman turned around faster than I thought possible. “Oh. Hi! Didn’t see you there.” She giggled like a schoolgirl. “A Hunter. Wow. That sounds exciting.” She shivered in delight. “You’re here to see the body too?”

  “Yes.” I nodded my head slowly, not sure what else I was supposed to do or say. When Pam adjusted her glasses again, I saw a small r-shaped birthmark on her forearm—the archangel Raphael’s sigil. Pam was from House Raphael. The angel-born from that house were always the healers and doctors, all jobs pertaining to a medical-type field.

  Pam looked up at Jax, beaming. “I’ve kept her nice and cool, just for you. Come on.” Pam moved fast for a person with such tiny legs. Jax gave me a sideways grin before sauntering after Pam.

  What had I gotten myself into? I wondered how many other Pams Jax had doing him favors.

  I followed Jax’s tight behind down the hallway and then through one of the doors from the hallway. The cool air hit me as I walked inside a large lab-like room, like I had stepped into a freezer. It stunk of bleach and dead tissue. Yuck. It had the typical morgue layout with stainless counters topped with medical tools and devices, wall-to-wall cabinets with books and bottles and jars of fluids. A sheet-draped gurney holding a body waited for our attention—the angel-born’s body.

  Pam waddled over and pulled off the drape like a magician performing the tablecloth trick. She rolled up the cloth, pressed it against her chest, and stood still, looking at Jax for approval. But Jax wasn’t looking at Pam. For the first time since we’d arrived, he wasn’t smiling. His sole focus was on the body. He walked over slowly, his body tense and wired as he examined it. He said nothing as he leaned over and inspected it like he was looking for something. A flicker of disappointment flashed over his face as he pulled away.

  It was as though he’d been looking for something specific, some mark on the body.

  I looked over to Pam and was shocked to see she had tears in her eyes as she stared at Jax. What the hell was going on?

  I stood in an uncomfortable silence. I wasn’t paid to pry into other people’s affairs. Making up my mind, I crossed the room and stood next to the body. It was female. Her throat had been slashed, and her skin had been so severely cut and torn, I couldn’t tell where her clothes ended and her skin began. I swallowed, forcing the bile down. I’d never seen a body that torn up before. It was as though she’d fallen into a meat grinder.

  “You know for a fact the victim was a Sensitive?” I asked as I made my way toward the head.

  “Yes,” said Pam. “Her name’s Samantha Fairfax. Twenty-four-year-old female Sensitive from Thornville. Her face was the only thing that wasn’t so badly damaged. Her boyfriend found her, poor soul. Must have been devastating.”

  My insides twisted. Why did that name sound familiar? When my eyes found her face, my blood ran cold.

  I knew that face.

  A tendril of panic unfurled like a leaf inside my chest. My breath caught, and I blinked a few times to keep the room from spinning. I pulled what was left of her hair out of the way and looked for a sigil on her neck, where the skin wasn’t damaged. Nothing. Heart pumping, I rushed over and grabbed her right arm.

  “What are you doing?” came Pam’s voice, and I heard the sound of feet coming closer. “Jax? What is she doing?” she said, her voice lower.

  I turned the victim’s hand around, trying to keep the panic from showing on my face. “Defensive wounds,” I said, my voic
e cracking. “She put up a fight. She wanted to live. But whatever did this to her—she was no match for it.” I yanked the sleeve up and examined her arm. I swallowed, my throat tight. Again, there was no archangel marking, no sigil.

  Shit. I ran over to the other side, ignoring Pam’s voice. I could barely hear her anyway. A cold sweat trickled down my back as I flung a long brown strand out of my eyes. With my pulse hammering, I grabbed her other arm, careful not to press into the shredded skin. But there was no sigil either.

  “Rowyn, what is it?” said Jax, his voice tight. “Do you know what demon did this?”

  Panic pulled my skin tight. “What house does Samantha belong to?”

  Pam grabbed a notepad from a nearby table. “Ah… just a second… oh, that’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?” said Jax, real concern in his voice as he made his way next to her.

  Pam frowned and then looked up at Jax. “It doesn’t say. Now why would they miss something like that?”

  I looked at both of them, my stomach knotting. “They didn’t.”

  Jax frowned at me and then grabbed the notepad from Pam and began swiping through it, as though she had missed something. But Pam didn’t look offended. She looked confused.

  “The other victim,” I said, as tension sang through me. I leaned against the bed, my vision darkening. “You said she was female, right? Do you remember her house?” I asked, a little too loudly. “Which house was she from? Jax?” I was practically yelling. Pam stared at me with wide eyes, her expression turned affront as she took a step back, like I was about to strike. But I didn’t care.

  Jax’s expression was hard as he looked up from the pad. He shook his head. “They never said anything about which houses. They just said the victims were definitely Sensitives and not regular humans. Rowyn,” said Jax, his expression went worried, “you know who she is. Don’t you?”

  I shifted my gaze to Samantha’s face, to her blank expression. “I know who she is,” I said, my voice faltering as it felt far away from me. “I know because she’s from my hometown. We grew up together.”

  I heard the scraping of boots, and then Jax was standing next to me. “Then you know what house she belongs to. Which is it?”

  I released a breath that I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “You don’t understand.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “The other female victim,” I said, my pulse racing. “Was her name Karen Finley?”

  Jax flipped through the papers on the pad. “How did you know that?” he said, frowning as he looked at me. “What’s going on, Rowyn?”

  “Samantha didn’t belong to any of the seven archangel houses,” I said sullenly.

  Pam snorted. “Of course she did, silly,” she said laughing. She brushed a red curl from her face. “An angel-born not having a house? Did you hear that, Jax? That’s like a bird without wings, a horse without legs. It just doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing. We are all born with the mark of an archangel. It’s what makes us what we are. I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day, Rowyn.”

  My breath came faster, and I shifted my weight. “They do exist. Just… a handful.”

  “Jax,” said Pam, her voice a little high. “What’s she blabbing about? Angel-born without the mark of an archangel? That’s ridiculous. Isn’t it? Jax? Tell her she’s being ridiculous.”

  “How would you know this, Rowyn?” Jax looked at me. His face held shadows of interest and something else I couldn’t make out.

  Tension pulled my stomach tight. “I know, because just like Samantha and Karen, I was born without a sigil. I’m Unmarked.”

  Pam let out a squeal and took another step back, as if being too close to me would make her sick. “Jax! Tell her to stop lying. Tell her!”

  Pam was looking at me with the familiar mix of fear and disgust I’d gotten most of my life. I’d hoped to get away from all of that, but it seemed I could never truly run away from who or what I was.

  I was an outsider as soon as I was born. I might as well have been branded by the devil himself the way I’d been treated.

  Jax’s mouth was slightly open as he traced his eyes over my neck and collarbone and then my wrists. I knew he was looking for proof, a birthmark, a sigil as evidence I was what I claimed to be—an Unmarked archangel descendant. A freak.

  “You won’t find anything,” I said. Jax’s face flushed a little. “Trust me, the Elder Guild has already poked and prodded me since I was born. There’s nothing there.”

  I looked at Jax, his expression wary. I took his silence as an invitation to continue. “We were never born with an archangel sigil like you. We were never marked or branded. We were born without a house.”

  “Why wasn’t I ever told about you?” inquired Jax. “About others like you, if you say there are others?”

  “Fear, maybe? Mostly because of shame. We’re a defect, abnormal in the eyes of the Council. They wanted to pretend we didn’t exist. The Council didn’t want to bring any attention to us. How can we be part of the Legion of Angels if we don’t have their sacred birthmark, without their blessing? Without an archangel sigil, what does that make us?”

  “Practically human,” Pam said flatly.

  I glared at her and immediately regretted it, as I saw the shock and then the fear cascading on her face at the sight of my teeth. Crap. I had started to like her.

  There was a short silence. “She’s not human,” said Jax as he tossed the notepad on the table next to him. The sound of the metal hitting the table seemed loud in the tight space. “I’ve seen what she can do, how she can fight. Humans can’t see or kick the asses of demons and monsters like she does. Besides, both her parents were angel-born from House Gabriel.”

  I raised my brows at him. Had he been checking up on me?

  Jax watched me with an empty look on his face. “She’s not human... she’s…” his expression tightened. “Something else.”

  My stomach clenched at his words. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like I hadn’t heard it all before. Rowyn the Freak was my nickname as a teen. I was bullied and beaten up every day until that one day, the year I turned fourteen, when I became stronger, faster, and cleverer than those my age and older, when Colin Donaldson came at me with a soul blade, flanked by his cronies Ben and Najib.

  “Hold her still. I’m gonna carve a sigil on the bitch,” he’d said, as his friends had laughed, holding my arms.

  Something had awakened in me. Darkness. Light. A little bit of both. I don’t know what it was. When it was over, the three boys lay on the ground, spitting out blood as they cried for their mommies.

  My parents had scolded me. No one cared that the dumbass Colin had taken a blade to me. All they cared about was what an Unmarked girl had done to their precious boys.

  That’s when the fear had started. Angel-born began to fear me, mostly because they didn’t understand where my strength and skill came from since I wasn’t blessed by the archangels.

  I didn’t want to get into my life’s story right now. Mostly because I didn’t like the way Pam was staring at me, like something interesting to dissect.

  “There’s a Greater demon hunting angel-born all right,” I said, my throat tight as I pulled my eyes from Pam to look at Jax. “If I’m right, it’s not just targeting angel-born. It’s targeting those like me. The Unmarked.”

  5

  The ride in Jax’s car to Thornville was as uncomfortable as a crowded elevator ride, like strangers pressing in from all sides, and I couldn’t wait to jump out.

  Although he was hot in all the right places, his physique wasn’t what had me wired like a top about to spin out of control. It was the situation we found ourselves in. Me a Hunter, loner, introvert, and poorer than your local street rat, and he some wealthy angel-born with a secret agenda. Yes, I could practically smell the money rolling off of him like he’d bathed in gold every morning and snacked on caviar lollipops. I’d pegged him as being from one of the first founding Sensitive f
amilies, probably from Europe somewhere, as soon as his perfect French rolled off his pretty tongue.

  You couldn’t find two more different people on the planet. And yet, here we were, paired together on the hunt to find a killer.

  I’d walked out of ALL SOULS REPAIR without a backward glance at Pam and had waited outside for Jax. I was wired. Way too wired to have Pam goggling over me the way she did. I was afraid I was about to do something stupid that I’d regret later.

  I’d waited beside Jax’s car, not knowing what else to do. “We need your car,” was all I had said as he came out. “We need to go to Thornville.”

  He hadn’t said a word as he unlocked the doors and got in. I didn’t know him well enough to read his blank expression or silence. I’d slipped in the passenger seat, sliding on the smooth black leather. I didn’t want to wait for a bus or waste my new cash on a cab to drive me around town. Jax had a car. I was going to use it.

  Besides, I had the horrible feeling we were already running out of time.

  With Samantha dead, I needed to find the only other Unmarked I knew existed, and I needed to get to her before the demon did. Trouble was, I didn’t know where she was. Five years was a long time. Who knew if she was even still in the same state or country?

  I sank into the seat, relishing the deep rumble of the engine as I stared at the familiar landscape of rolling hills, ponds, and farmhouse that lined Upper Brook Road.

  I shifted nervously in my seat. Jax’s cologne was a pleasant mix of spices and fruit that probably cost more than my month’s rent. I hadn’t been this close to a man since I’d elbowed a male witch in the gut after he’d attempted to spell my drink six months ago at a pub in Chicago.

  Hunters were loners, and loners didn’t get to go on many dates. Sure, I’d dated humans, but it always ended badly—usually with me running away in the middle of the night. How could I ever explain what they couldn’t see or understand? That didn’t leave a lot of males to choose from. I’d given up on the whole dating thing. I kept myself busy, so I didn’t get lonely.