Burning Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  “ ’Night,” he said.

  She could feel his body heat radiating toward her. She wouldn’t be getting to sleep anytime soon. As scary as the fire nightmares were, she was afraid of a whole new dream tonight. Something erotic and sweaty, bodies sliding against each other, breathing heavy, naked . . . sometimes even good dreams were scary.

  Chapter 12

  Neil pulled into the parking lot of the Love Shack. He killed the engine and stepped out, quietly closing the door. He sniffed the air. Mm, lots of emotions here: fear of getting caught, shame, and lust. He breathed them in, letting them shimmer through his body. And somewhere here were Eric Aruda and Fonda Raine. What were their emotions?

  His brother had found them. Damned annoying that he had to rely on someone else’s skills for that. Especially Malcolm’s. He wasn’t sure what they drove or exactly which room they were in. Malcolm couldn’t get that exact. But Neil would find them. The hunt was as much fun as the kill. There were people around, so he wouldn’t be able to use his skills in a spectacular way. Drawing attention to themselves was the ultimate sin. Not that they were following the rules anyway, not completely.

  He walked down the concrete strip, pausing in front of the first motel room and listening. Sensing. The woman was shaming the man, calling him names and, if the slapping sound was what he thought, spanking him. People were so odd. They got swamped by their emotions, and that made them weak. Much better to eat them as a delicacy and not be eaten by them.

  He sensed the shiver of electricity—the Geo Wave, it was called—of another one of their kind. He scanned the surroundings and his gaze alighted on a man wearing black several yards away. Neil’s lips curled into a sneer as he approached the man.

  “What are you doing here, Pope?” he asked. “You are not assigned to us anymore.”

  “And you are not supposed to be here. Leave now.”

  “You’re assigned to them?” Neil nodded toward the motel. “To assassinate?”

  “Leave.”

  He couldn’t be sure, not enough to challenge him right there. Pope’s powerful abilities were legendary, though Neil had never seen them firsthand. He hated backing down but wasn’t about to go head-to-head with him here and now. Besides, an altercation would alert his prey.

  He turned and left. Several minutes later he called Malcolm, who asked, “Is it finished?”

  “No. Pope was there.”

  “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “Getting in my way. He ordered me to leave. I didn’t want to make a scene so I obliged. I was not pleased.”

  “Pope isn’t supposed to use his abilities on you, or interfere with our official tasks, but he can cause problems with our unofficial ones. The question is, why was he there? What does he know about the Offspring?”

  “We didn’t exactly have a chat,” Neil said. “I could take care of him as we did the last one.”

  “Only if necessary. We don’t want to take any risks. We have two factions to consider. I have a lead on the whereabouts of the rest of the Rogues, who must be in hiding together. Darkwell was in the process of obtaining the original blueprints for Lucas’s art gallery. I don’t know why, but he must have suspected something. I’m pursuing that now. I will continue to monitor all of their abodes for the time being, but I suspect they’ve been warned.”

  “And I will take care of these two. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Eric lay there listening to Fonda breathe. She remained awake longer than he thought she would, but finally her breathing settled into a deeper pattern. After those surprising words about being glad she hadn’t killed him, he had to lighten the moment. Then he’d gone and made her smile, and those dimples, and the light in her eyes, and the very sad thought that she didn’t smile much . . . She’d never spent the night with a man before. That had settled right into his gut, like a warm gift of melted chocolate.

  Not a gift to you. Forget that. Last thing you need is to feel anything.

  The sleep deprivation was tricking out his mind, weakening him. He didn’t want to give in to the illusion of what he felt for her, or thought he felt.

  He finally dozed, snatching at sleep, seconds here and there before bobbing back to the surface. A sound snapped him fully awake. Someone beside him, lifting the gun from the nightstand. Fonda . . . pointing the gun at him.

  What the . . . ? He lunged for her, twisting her around and onto the bed, his fingers squeezing hers on the gun. Her eyes were blank. Hell. Sayre.

  “Fonda, wake up!” He didn’t want to hurt her, but he had to stop her.

  She kept struggling to bring the gun barrel back to his face. He pinned her wrist to the bed.

  “Fonda!”

  She was looking at him, but it wasn’t her in there. Her mouth twisted in a faint, evil smile before she blinked. Her eyes widened. “Get your hands off me! What are you doing, coming on to me in my sleep?”

  Yep, she was back. He gave her a sardonic look. “Hardly my style.” He pulled her hand in front of her, and she could see her fingers holding the gun. “You were about to wipe me.”

  She released the gun, and he climbed off her and took it. She sat up, looking spooked. “Sayre.”

  He nodded.

  She shuddered. “He was in me. I remember the dream and then I felt him coming in. I couldn’t do anything to stop him. He was talking to me, ‘Let me in, darlin’,’ and I couldn’t fight him.” Her eyes were still wide as she remembered, her arms around herself.

  He wanted to put his arms around her, too, but stopped himself. “He’s never come into me, but that’s what he does.”

  “If you hadn’t woken me up—”

  “But I did.” He did touch her then, rubbing her shoulder for a second before pulling his hand back. “It’s all right now.”

  “Is this what it felt like with Jerryl, someone twisting their way into your head, the violation of it?” She looked at him. “No wonder you wanted to kill him.” She looked at him, her eyes intense. “I knew that’s what he was doing, but I never thought about it from the other side. Your side.”

  “It’s way damned different when you see it that way, isn’t it?”

  She put her hands to her temples. “I understand why you did it.” She grimaced slightly, as though she were in pain. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t kill me. I was the enemy, too.”

  He could breathe easier for some reason, like something had opened in his chest. “You weren’t my enemy.” He gave her a small smile. “I’m glad I didn’t kill you, too.”

  Her laugh was soft, halting.

  He said, “You asked me what I felt when I killed Jerryl. I said triumphant and relieved. I downplayed the relief part.” He stared past her. “Having him in my head like that, knowing he could force me to do something against my will, scared the hell out of me. Those seconds when he was trying to get me to shoot my people were the most terrifying in my life. I’ve always been strong, tough. But I wasn’t strong enough.”

  He met her gaze, and he could tell she knew exactly how that had felt. “Killing him was the only thing I could do. But no, I didn’t enjoy it. I thought I would, but I didn’t.” He clenched his fist. “I used to get a rush using my powers. I set buildings on fire to punish criminal employers, but it was always after hours when no one was there. Before I knew I could do it from a distance, I was sending hateful thoughts toward my stepmother and set the house on fire. She was too drunk to get herself out and died. That was the first time I killed someone. I didn’t mean to kill her.” Guilt still gnawed at him over that.

  “Your mother set herself on fire by accident, right?”

  He nodded. “I learned that before I knew about my ability, but fire had always drawn me. The first time I discovered I could set fires psychically . . .” He shook his head, remembering how it had blown him away. “My father and I had an argument. I was thirteen, I was angry, and afterward I was staring at a patch of ground in the backyard, and suddenly—poof!—it went up in flames. I
stomped it out, stunned. Then I tried it again, this time on purpose and farther from the house. It happened again. I watched the flames, the way they danced and spat . . . it was sensual. Intoxicating.” He looked at her. “But I didn’t feel that way when I burned Jerryl. And I won’t feel that way when I nail Sayre either.”

  She tilted her head. “Thank you for telling me that.”

  He heard a car door close and leapt off the bed. An engine started. He cracked open the drapes and looked out to the parking area. A man stood in the lot as a car tore out, spitting gravel. He was taller than Eric, though not as big. His shaved head reflected the red neon light from the sign. The man turned and looked right at him, as though sensing he was being watched. Eric held his gaze and felt a ripple of electricity go through his chest. The guy wasn’t there to catch a quickie. He was there for them.

  “We’re out of here,” he said, snapping the drapes shut. “There’s a guy out there who’s giving me the creeps.”

  “Not Westerfield?”

  “Totally different dude.”

  She scrambled off the bed. He pulled on his clothes, which he’d left near the bed on purpose. He checked the window again, but the man wasn’t in sight.

  She stepped out, wearing dark orange linen pants and a wraparound shirt. Every time he saw her, she looked completely different. “I’m ready,” she said, picking up the bag.

  He grabbed his bag and the gun and peered outside again. Still no sign of the man he’d seen before. He remote-viewed, scanning the parking lot. “I don’t see him at all, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a hallucination.” He looked at her. “So far I’m not that sleep deprived. But we’re out of here anyway.”

  They crept out of the dark room and into the night.

  Chapter 13

  Eric and Fonda drove until the sun began to paint the sky shades of purple and pink. She’d never witnessed a sunrise before, and had now been awake to see two in a row. She picked up a magazine off the floorboard, one she’d bought at a convenience store the day before. Her guilty pleasure had been drinking up celebrities’ drama and angst. Cheating sports stars, scandalized politicians, and the latest divorce . . . well, compared to her ordeal, they all seemed boring. She dropped it to the floor and turned to Eric, taking in his profile, square jaw and strong, short chin.

  “I’m ready to find Westerfield,” she said.

  “Okay. I’ll find a place to pull over.”

  Fifteen minutes later he drove through the entrance to a cemetery. “Do graveyards bother you?” he asked, seeing her take in the rows of gravestones.

  “Nothing bothers me.” Not the remains of the dead, not nightmares about Jerryl’s death, and especially and certainly not Eric. She got out of the truck and started walking toward the stones. Some were very old. Those were the ones she liked best, old-fashioned names like Beatrice and Herbert, dual stones for husband and wife. The ones where only the husband or wife was gone always pulled at her heart, like plucking one string of a guitar. One person left behind, waiting to die so he or she could join their love.

  She sank to the grass on the other side of a dual headstone, tracing the groove of the heart on the granite. A cold sense of aloneness swept through her, but she erased any mournful expression she might have on her face at the sound of his footsteps coming close.

  “Hiding?” he said, leaning on the top of the stone and peering down at her.

  “As if I could.” Her hand dropped from the groove. “Just getting into the mind-set.” She leaned against the stone, and the cold seeped into her back as she closed her eyes. She heard him come around and kneel beside her on the crunchy grass and fought not to look at him.

  “He’ll be able to see you, right?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’ll be quick, in and out. Enough to see where he is.”

  “If you pinpoint the location, even in a general way, I can remote-view it more carefully. I can do it from a distance, like a few hundred feet above the target, so he won’t sense me. We don’t want him to know we’re looking for him.”

  They were using their skills in tandem. It felt strange, but she supposed it made sense. “All right.”

  “Be careful.”

  She cracked her eye open at that. “What do you mean? About being seen?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know what I meant. It just came out.”

  “He can’t do anything to me in my etheric form.”

  His eyes looked darker than usual, the pupils slightly dilated. “You don’t know what he can do.”

  She tried to hide her shiver at those words.

  Her hands flattened on the cool damp ground. She settled into her comfortable spot, sliding through the clouds and the place where the humming started. Just when it got so loud it hurt her ears and shook her body, the clouds parted.

  She was sitting in the front seat of a car, Westerfield at the wheel. He was looking out the side window, but, as though sensing her, started to turn her way. She disappeared but kept the connection, reappearing in the backseat behind him. Funny how her heart was pounding as though she were physically there. She took note of the signs they passed.

  He turned onto a gravel road overrun with weeds, got out and unlatched a gate. The sign next to the road read CAMDON AIRFIELD. It was faded, the paint cracked, reminding her of the shantytown flea market. He got back in the car and turned down the radio. He sensed her, because his body was alert as he slowly turned.

  She pulled out.

  Eric was sitting close, too close, watching her intently.

  “Back off, Aruda,” she said. “You’re in my space.”

  “I’m keeping an eye on you. Whenever one of my people goes off somewhere, we always watch for any signs of trouble.”

  She pushed to her feet. “I’m not one of your people, and I’ve been doing this for a long time without anyone watching over me.”

  He stood, too. “You haven’t targeted someone like Westerfield before.”

  “I can handle it.”

  She was being bitchy. The bitchiness bounced through her like a pinball, making her restless even as fatigue started to drag on her. She’d let him see her in embarrassing and vulnerable positions twice, and that was enough.

  “Darkwell never said there was any danger in leaving our bodies,” she said.

  “Sure, he’s going to tell you that when he wants you to do his bidding? And he probably had no idea if there was danger or not.”

  The thought of that thread breaking . . .

  “Did you find him?” he asked, derailing that startling train of thought.

  “Yes.” She told him about the sign.

  “I’ll call my people, have them look it up on the Internet.”

  My people this, my people that. Did he have to rub it in? He checked on their status and then gave whoever he was talking to the information she’d given him. He spread the map on the ground and traced his long finger along the roadways as he listened. “Got it. That’s not far from here. Thanks.” He looked at her. “It’s in a town named, of course, Camdon. I’m going in for a closer look.”

  He reclined on the ground outside the line of the graves, she noticed, cradling his head with his hands. He hadn’t asked her to watch over him. When he closed his eyes and started breathing heavily, she quietly stepped closer. His eyes twitched beneath his closed lids and the veins in his neck stood out. His body trembled. What would he look like if he ran into trouble? How would she pull him back?

  “I see the airfield,” he said, surprising her.

  She couldn’t communicate while under, or at least she’d never thought about trying.

  “He’s opening the doors to a hangar. There are a few hangars, but they’re all empty. Not this one. There’s an old plane inside. He’s walking to a tool chest in the back . . . taking out keys. I can’t get much closer without him sensing me.”

  He opened his eyes, and she took a step back and looked into the distance, as though she hadn’t been watching his every twitch. He pushed to h
is feet, grunting with the effort.

  “Do you get tired after you remote-view?” she asked.

  “Yeah. That’s why I try not to stay too long. Otherwise I’m out. And we don’t have time to wait. He’s getting that plane ready, and who knows if he’ll come back.”

  “How far away are we?”

  “Probably about forty minutes.”

  She had that time to rest, but he didn’t, not if he was driving.

  Once they were in the truck, he turned to her. “Get some rest,” he said, as though reading her mind.

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine. My fatigue comes in waves, and for now I’m fine.”

  “How are we going to get rid of this guy?”

  “He blocked me from torching him before, but he might have been expecting it. I need to take him by surprise.” He started the engine but looked at her. “Will that be too hard, seeing me do that?”

  She shook her head. “Not with Westerfield.”

  It touched her that he cared. When she met his eyes, meaning to tell him that she appreciated that, his eyes caught her attention again. “Eric, your pupils are dilated.”

  He looked in the rearview mirror, blinking as he took in his reflection. “That’s weird. Maybe it’s the early morning light. Or the aftereffect of remote-viewing.”

  “They were a little dilated before you remote-viewed. Now they’re more so.”

  He put the truck into gear and pulled out. It wasn’t the light. A shiver of unease flowed through her.

  She closed her eyes but couldn’t drop off to sleep during the drive.

  As they entered the small town of Camdon, he said, “There’s no need for both of us to go in. I can—”

  “This is my war. You’re not keeping me out of the action.”

  “I’m just saying—”

  “No, don’t just say anything about me staying put.”

  He gave her the look of an impatient parent, which annoyed her all the more. “Remember how he sent those boards flying? If something like that hits you, you’re done for. Besides, my plan is to torch the guy, and I’d rather you not be around to see that.”