She hated pity more than anything else, and he knew that too. It made her feel weak, defeated, violated, and defenseless. She’d been stripped of her life for no reason and pity made it worse. He looked over at the Shifter. Their eyes locked. For once he understood what a woman felt because he felt it, truly felt it as if he had a second personality inside him.
“Damn.” He looked up at the witch, who smiled.
“Master of the Hunt.” The witch threw a handful of herbs at him. Naming him, she was naming him for God’s sake. The kid threw a fistful at the woman and whispered, “Mistress Hunter.” Then she collapsed, and a beam from the roof fell across her, blocking his view. Although that could have been the thickening smoke burning his eyes. Oh good, he wouldn’t die from roasting alive, but smoke inhalation. Yeah.
Looking up, he saw the stall he was cuffed to get licked once, twice, three times with flames from the fallen beam before it caught and started eating away. The heat was getting worse; he could feel the blisters starting on his skin. He started to cough and couldn’t stop. He pulled and shouted and yelled, but nothing seemed to be working and he was using up a lot of oxygen he didn’t seem to have anymore. He wondered if his family would be able to claim his body or if it would go into an unmarked grave, the same as his older brother’s had last year. It was his last thought.
Chapter Six: Aislyn
Heat. The fire was licking my face, but I looked up to see my half of the barn hadn’t caught as badly yet. Him. Somehow I was connected to him. And I was getting a front row seat to his death. Great. Another little joy I could lay at the little brat’s feet. Witch.
I yanked on the cuffs and was surprised to find them come apart. I had pretty silver bracelets now. The smoke was getting bad. I was coughing and all instinct now, the cat rushing at my hands while they worked on the ankle chains. The iron pulled apart easily. I stared at it for a second, thinking. Adrenaline? Or had the cat learned a new trick from the witch’s spell?
I felt the first flame sear across my hand and looked down to find that nothing was there. It was him. I was feeling what was happening to him, somehow. Damn the witch to hell for this too. I got up, fully intending to get myself out, and instead found myself crawling across the room, going straight into the heart of the smoke and fire. I found him without any problems at all, like I knew where he was all along. I tugged at his cuffs and they came apart just like mine. Goodie. I dragged him out of the flames far enough so that I could throw him over my shoulder and turned round to get back out.
Fire blocked a lot of the way. I crouched down and saw a glimmer of metallic red in the distance. Was it the man’s truck? Flames leaped up and blocked my view again, but I had a direction. I just hoped I wouldn’t smack into anything or handsome here might just not wake up at all. I gathered my legs under me, bent at the knee and jumped, almost to the roof, then landed hard two inches from the truck. Holy crap.
Okay, I needed some work on the superhero part of this nightmare, but I didn’t have time right now. I prayed for a little luck and got it; the keys were still in the ignition. I tossed the guy in the truck bed with a satisfying clunk, revved the engine and threw it into reverse. Not my brightest idea, but I couldn’t really call what I was doing thinking either.
We crashed through the barn wall, wood and fire splintering and cascading around us. But we were out and relatively safe. I kept running though. The thought that the kid might still be there in the barn ate at me for all of twenty seconds. If the witch burned, that was great. I didn’t have to run from her anymore. If not, oh well. Let her explain herself to authorities if she got out alive.
I found a little dirt track that must have been a road during the dry seasons, but right now was all about the mud. Typical Colorado weather turned roads like this into traps, but the grassy sides might be just as dangerous. I chose to ride the grass alongside the road, just in case. I didn’t want to get stuck when the cops and fire trucks showed up. Especially when the old house sitting next to the barn caught fire like it looked as if it was going to. There were no lights on and we’d made a hell of a racket breaking out like we did, so either no one was home or they were already dead. I really hoped no one was home. I had a sudden vision of the witch knocking people out with a spell so they couldn’t wake up, the vision so fierce and overwhelming that it knocked the wind out of me. But I couldn’t stop and make a clean getaway either. Damn the witch for this. It was all her fault. I might not be the one doing the actual killing, but the people inside that house would be just as dead. Another set of murders at my feet. It made me hyperventilate.
Okay, I had to calm down a bit. I couldn’t stay in this state anymore, obviously. I had to grab the emergency cash and alternate IDs stashed on my bike before I could go anywhere and I had to get rid of my passenger while I did it. Hmm. That sounded logical and reasonable. Then I could figure out what the hell the witch had done this time.
I stopped the truck and got out, listening for sirens above the now diminishing thunder. The storm was disappearing quickly. I jumped into the back and checked Jackson’s pulse.
Jackson? Where had that come from? He stirred and I knelt beside him, listening to him breath. Slow and steady. He was alive, singed but okay. And it looked like he’d have a hell of a scar along his right hand where he’d started to cook. I had intended to dump his ass off the truck, but found myself lifting him gently and taking all the impact from jumping onto the ground. I found a jacket in the back and I laid him on it, using a shirt to cover him. I bit my lip and judged the distance from here to the house. The gnawing inside my chest left me no choice, even if the cat inside my head was yowling at me to run. I rushed the house, smashing the door down. Whatever luck I had got used up immediately as I spotted the old couple laying three feet from their doorway. I hauled them out, praying that leaving them in the damp far enough away from their now-burning house wouldn’t give them pneumonia and kill them anyway. I sprinted back to the truck, leaped over Jackson and slammed the door. I pulled away slowly, watching in my driver’s side mirror to make sure he was gonna be all right.
Then I sped back to the hotel. The rain had disappeared when I got back and I parked next to my room, close as I could get. The key had disappeared, as had my clothes, so I popped the lock right off the door and went in, gathering up clothes into my backpack and toweling off the worst of the mud and dirt so I could put on fresh ones. The television was still on and the early morning news report was broadcasting. The anchor was tossing the feed out to some poor slob in the field. “Susan Lucas has the story.”
“That’s right, Dan, we have unconfirmed reports that the Ghost Cat Killer has struck again.” I froze, peeking from under the towel I was using to hastily dry my hair.
“The body of an as yet unidentified woman was found brutally murdered atop this local bar behind me.” The camera panned and focused on the third floor of Tammy’s Bar and the lungful of air left me in a whoosh. “The body was discovered around 6:00 a.m. this morning by a resident of the building leaving for work, who saw blood leaking from a door. No one reported hearing screams, no one seems to have seen anyone suspicious entering or leaving the building and…wait…here comes the lead investigator on this. Detective Rodriguez, can you give us any information on what has happened here this morning?” A man in a badge, tailored suit and an air of authority tried to push his way past the lights and cameras towards the scene to no avail. He was tall and athletic; dark-skinned and had light amber eyes. It was lust at first sight for the reporter, and I couldn’t really blame her. He appeared all business, however and sighed, realizing he wasn’t getting through without some sort of comment.
“The victim is an African-American female, approximately thirty to forty years of age. That is all I am prepared to discuss at this time until next of kin have been notified and our preliminary investigations of this scene are complete. Thank you and I will be in contact with your offices later this morning. Thank you, thank you.” The man pushed through the reporte
rs to just beyond the tape. The camera still focused on him and I saw the body being carried down the stairs in the bag strapped to the gurney. It was taking four men. Tammy.
I was on my bike heading for Denver before the door finished swinging.
Chapter Seven: Jackson
When he got a hold of the woman, she was dead. Not the easy death he would have given an innocent mixed up in this, but one with all the bells and whistles. He was gonna…
“Mr. Haven?” the deputy interrupted his tirade. He waved at Jackson and Jackson had to rush over like the good little boy he was pretending to be. He retrieved his ID (which had been in his jacket pocket), and listened to the good policeman explain to him what had happened. People usually told you what they wanted to hear if you just listened close enough. It saved time and he was in a hurry. She was heading for Denver; he knew it in his gut. Why go back there? What was so damned important if she was running?
“You sure are lucky we happened by, mister. We saw the fire from the highway and we just about drove off the road. I never saw a fire that big since the Haymen fire. Well, not that we saw that, just the smoke down here. We were sure Dorothy and Arnold would have moved into town for that, but they stayed right out here until today. We found them out here just after we found you. You should have called for help instead of trying to go into a burning building.” Deputy Do-right was nodding, saving Jackson the trouble. Yeah, the others were definitely not going to let him live this down. He could almost hear his cousins now. “Pity about your truck being stolen, but then you never can tell about hitchhikers. Especially women. You know, there was this one fella, a while back…”
“Did you find anybody or animals in the barn? It looked like it was the first to burn when I got here.” He gritted his teeth and the officer took it for a smile in the dawn light. He felt more than heard a growl up his spine. Hunting, the woman was going back there to hunt. He had to move.
“Nope, like I said, you were lucky.” The deputy turned away at that moment, upset that Jackson had interrupted a perfectly good story, otherwise he would have caught Jackson narrowing his eyes. The witch had made it out alive. Where was she heading?
One problem at a time there, Jackson old boy. He needed to come back to the others with at least one of them out of the way, for his pride’s sake if nothing else. The Shifter was the more dangerous. He’d go after her and then backtrack to the witch.
He smiled and signed the forms the nice people handed him, gave them the false address he always did for out-of-state police use and was surprised when they told him the hotel had reported his truck returned to the parking lot a while ago. The door to the room had been broken into and would he mind taking a trip to the station with them?
Great. Women were disappearing in Denver, the hotel room was probably registered to a woman (a Shifter, but they didn’t need to know that) and his truck was parked outside. He bet it looked like it had been ransacked too. She was smart; he had to give her that. It had all the makings of a hook-up gone bad and the fire being a cover up. Although why start a fire in the middle of nowhere to cover a body when you had a perfectly good excuse to use in Denver? Then again, it was a couple of good ole boys up here. Why hunt for suspects when you had one right in front of you? And a stranger at that. He must have seemed just about perfect to them.
“Deputy.” A small voice came from the dark and they all turned to see the kid walking towards them. She was covered with soot and limping, but everyone didn’t seem to see that. The older couple (Dorothy and whatever the man’s name had been, he guessed), who’d been hugging themselves off to the side, sighed with relief. Jackson pressed his lips together and bit his tongue. Hard. If he played this just right…
“Laura!” The couple hobbled over to her. She accepted their relief with a nodding head. No one seemed worried that a search of the area hadn’t turned up any evidence of a kid in the house or barn, but everyone was acting as if this girl was supposed to be here. As if she was a regular part of the family. He wondered if the old couple even had any kids. The witch was good. All these people were under her weirding. She was so far from her territory and injured that it must have been incredibly draining. The Shifter might be more dangerous because of her nature, but this one was going to be a problem due to sheer power.
Should he push it? See just how much her spell could stand? How powerful she really was? The right questions from him, a few doubts to push everyone else into thinking and her glamour would crumble and they’d both be in jail. He ground his teeth together. He was sorely tempted to ruin her spell though, just for the hell of it.
“My grandparents and I had picked this guy up and were giving him a lift home to use the phone. We saw the fire and I rushed in to get my horse out, but kind of fainted from all the smoke. If it hadn’t of been for this guy, we would have never gotten out alive.” Laura turned those bright shining eyes towards Jackson and he had to turn his laugh into a choke.
Her story was as thin as could be, but they all bought it. No one would question anything as long as they didn’t examine anything too closely and why would they? The owners, their “granddaughter” and the stranger’s stories all seemed to track. The evidence would magically appear to support the story. Everything would be just one more yarn for the deputy to tell later on to some other stranger. He hated the way witches just bent things any way they wanted, even if it was helping him out right now.
Jackson got a ride back to the hotel and the witch tagged along, just to make sure everything was all right. No one blinked at the flawed logic. A teen wanting to tag along with an older man to his hotel room was okay? The inside of his cheek was going to be sore from all the biting he was doing to keep quiet. Just smile and nod and agree to everything the witch was saying, he kept telling himself, she’ll be dealt with.
He grinned at the officer, shook his hand and turned to the ruined door of the woman’s hotel room. He didn’t hear what the witch was saying to explain it away. He was sure it was equally as thin. The girl came up behind him as the officer was leaving. He turned sharp, about to yell but kept his hands very still at his sides. He mustn’t threaten the nice witch. The officer looked concerned and he tried a smile, though it felt like he was growling at the man. The deputy waved happily and continued along on his day.
“I survived the fire.” She was standing in the ruined doorway as if expecting him to invite her inside. He moved out of the way.
“So I see.”
“Where is she?” The witch began rummaging around, playing detective. He watched her for about two minutes while he counted backwards from one hundred.
“What makes you think I am in any way about to help you and not skin you alive?” They didn’t actually skin witches, just tended to box them or if they were particularly naughty, kill them outright. Guess which one he was going to recommend to the others?
“You have to help me. I won’t undo the binding if you don’t. And you’ll be stuck with her. I know what you are, even if she doesn’t yet.” The kid found a garbage pail and dug through it for clues, not making eye contact with him.
“Help you what?” He walked up to her, putting himself an inch from her body. The kid didn’t back away, though he saw the twitch in her eyes that said she wanted to. “What binding?” He leaned closer. This time the kid did back away, biting her nails.
“It worked, I know it worked.” She pulled her blackened sweater down around her hands and ran the edges over her mouth, like a baby would a favorite blanket. “You should be able to hear her thoughts, see where she is and make her do what you want. You’re the Master of the Hunt. That’s what’s supposed to happen, I think…” Her voice trailed off and she peeked at him, her wide eyes brimming with tears.
He leaned towards her. “Supposed to? You don’t know?” He shivered. Witches were one thing. New witches with all their powers turned to the on position were rare but not unheard of. One thing everyone, even non-witches, agreed on was that trying a spell like that without know
ing what was going to happen was bad. The power could go wild, the target could reverse itself and come after the witch, and the spell could become something totally different, according to whoever had a will that was more powerful than the witch’s. There were so many things that could go wrong; he was a heartbeat away from calling in a full-scale assault.
“She’s the key, the key to making it all work. I know I can fix it with her. She can stop it.” He backed away a bit. She was pacing and muttering to herself and it was starting to give him the creeps. Witches didn’t take chances. They didn’t draw attention to themselves, it was what made them so hard to find. This one seemed unhinged somehow. He was looking for something to knock the kid out with when she wheeled on him. “We have to find her! You have to bring her back!” She flicked her wrist for a spell, a flash blinding him and a bang knocking him down. She was gone when he got up off his ass. He'd been whacked around by the same witch twice. There was no justice to the world. There was a note with a phone number to call when he found his Mistress Hunter. There was also a threat that if he brought in any of his friends she would just disappear, leaving him permanently bound to a Shapeshifter. And that would be bad, read the note, since if she dies, so do you unless I undo the binding.
This just kept getting worse. The witch was off her rocker and apparently one of the most powerful he’d ever run across. She’d tied him to a bloodthirsty Shifter, and was using him for an errand boy. He couldn’t even call for help. The others would kill the Shifter anyway and so sorry for him. He hated everything right now.
Even for Me Page 3
