Hunter's Salvation

by Shiloh Walker

  Vax straightened and met her annoyed gaze with a smile. Mildly, he replied, “I’m going to make an omelet. I’m hungry, and I don’t think a bagel is going to do much to fill me up.”

  “I don’t think I offered you one.”

  Vax reached out, catching a thick lock of pale blonde hair. He gave it a tug before letting go. “That’s okay. I don’t want a bagel. You know, you ought to clean out your refrigerator a little more often than once a season. That moo shu was about to grow legs and walk out of your fridge.”

  She gritted her teeth, and he turned away to hide his grin. He grabbed eggs, a tomato, one of the hunks of cheddar, and the package of shaved ham. Whistling, he walked over to the stove and dumped the ingredients onto the counter before hunting down a skillet. From the corner of his eye, he could see her standing by the fridge and glaring at him.

  She was irritated as all get out. He could tell just from the look on her face, the way she stood glaring at him, hands fisted on her narrow hips. But he couldn’t sense anything from her.

  “You know what an Empath is?”

  “Yes.” She spat out the word like she had something nasty in her mouth.

  He finally found a skillet in a cabinet under the sink. Most of the counters were dusty. It didn’t look as if she’d cooked in here for months. Odd, though. Most of the stuff was the high-end variety, and all of it looked like it had been put to good use. He sauntered back over to the stove and started searching for something to grease the skillet with. All he found was some low-calorie spray crap, but it was better than nothing. Well, at least he thought so until he smelled it. “This stuff smells like crap. Why the hell do people cook with it?” he muttered, reading the ingredient label.

  “What would you prefer that I use? Lard?” Jess said with a saccharine smile.

  “No. Butter or vegetable oil works just fine.” He ignored her sarcasm as he greased the skillet and turned on the stove. As the skillet began to heat, he grabbed a bowl from a cabinet and began cracking the eggs.

  “Since you know what an Empath is, I don’t suppose you can tell me why I can’t feel anything from you?” He spun around and braced his back against the counter, watching her as he started to beat the eggs. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely, he would have completely missed seeing the surprise in her eyes.

  “An Empath,” she repeated slowly.

  He crooked a brow at her. “Why are you surprised?”

  Jess studied him intently. She had an insightful stare. He wondered what she saw when she looked at him. Not too much, he hoped. Vax didn’t much care much for the thought that anybody might be able to read him easily.

  Finally, she lifted her narrow shoulders restlessly. “I’m not sure. You don’t seem the type to be an Empath.”

  Vax smiled bitterly. “Tell that to the people in charge of handing out gifts.”

  “There are people in charge?” she drawled. “I never realized that.”

  “There’s got to be somebody in charge. How else did any of us end up as we are? Whether it’s magick, intelligence, telekinesis…pretty green eyes…” He stared into hers and watched as a blush turned her cheeks pink. “Don’t you think there’s a master planner?”

  “Nope. I think it’s science, genes, natural selection. People like us end up different because of some sort of weird gene sequence. Gifts run in families—that adds up to something in the DNA. That means science to me.” She shrugged dismissively and took a bite out of her bagel.

  Vax turned back to the stove and poured the egg mixture into the hot skillet. As he washed the tomato, he said, “Natural selection doesn’t have to be exclusive of a master design. When the weak die off, maybe it plays into that master design.”

  Blonde brows arched over her eyes. She stared at him for a minute and then turned away with a shrug. “Master design. Sort of like intelligent design?” she asked.

  Vax smiled. “If you like.”

  “I also wouldn’t have pegged you for a religious type.”

  Vax shrugged as he started dicing the tomato. “I’m not. I’m a faith type. Religion is for the masses—it can be a status thing, a comfort thing, or just a thing you do out of habit, but it isn’t always because somebody believes. I believe. I define that as faith.” He tossed the scraps into the garbage can before looking back at her. “You know, I’ve spent most of my life alone. It hasn’t been the happiest one, but I’d say it’s a sight better than spending my life thinking this is all there is.”

  Jess snorted. “This is all there is. You don’t actually think good behavior is going to take you to some higher plane when it’s all over, do you?”

  “Good behavior.” He repeated it slowly, a wide grin on his face. Then he started to laugh. “Good behavior isn’t something I’ve ever been accused of. If, and that’s probably a big if, I get to that higher plane, it will because of grace, not anything I’ve done.”

  “That seems kind of pointless to me.”

  Turning back to the skillet, he checked the omelet before adding the tomatoes. Going to work on the cheese, he said, “So does thinking that this is all there is. That everything you do, all the good or the bad a person does, that every choice you make in life is futile. I prefer to think that in the end, it actually means something.”

  She looked as confused as hell. “But if good behavior doesn’t matter, why should you care?”

  He checked the bottom of the omelet and turned the heat down a little before he turned back and looked at her. “Because it means somewhere along the way, I did something good with my life, good that maybe will make a difference to somebody else.”

  Her voice was soft. “You’re a Hunter, aren’t you? Something good is what you’re all about.”

  “Once, maybe.” And he missed it. Vax hadn’t realized it until that very second, but he missed it. He missed knowing that he’d made a difference to someone or something. But he couldn’t go back to it. He just didn’t have the heart for it anymore.

  Silence ensued, and Vax finished cooking the omelet, although by the time he finished it, he wasn’t hungry. All the same, he carried the steaming mass of eggs, tomatoes, ham, and cheese to the table and sat down. He jabbed at it with his fork and said, “Want some? That bagel isn’t much to work on.”

  She looked down at the bagel as though she’d forgotten all about it. With a shrug, she said, “This is all I ever eat.” She added in a wry tone, “But by all means, you go ahead. Enjoy my food.”

  “Somebody ought to.”

  Jess put down her bagel and leaned back in her chair. With a sardonic smile, she asked, “Are you here to discuss my dietary habits, or was there something you actually wanted?”

  Running his eyes over her lean form, he mused that somebody should discuss her dietary habits, especially if that chewy piece of bread was her normal breakfast. But if Vax had learned one thing in his life, it was that women rarely appreciated a man’s view on their diets. She was as slender as a reed. If that bagel and the contents of her refrigerator were anything to go by, she didn’t spend nearly enough time enjoying one of the finer things in life.

  A good meal.

  He wondered how many of life’s other little luxuries she robbed herself of. Taking a hike in the mountains. A horseback ride right at sunset. Lying beside a campfire and staring up at the stars. Sex.

  He shrugged off that train of thought and focused on her question. He looked up and saw that, once more, she was staring at him with irritation written all over her pretty face. “You know, you never did answer me. I’m curious as to why I can’t read you. But there is a more pressing matter at hand.”

  She stood up and strolled over to the sink. After she rinsed the plate and the cup, she turned around and propped her hands on her hips. Skinny hips. The hem of her shirt rode up just a bit, revealing a bare slice of skin. Her belly was flat and sleekly muscled. He wondered idly if the rest of her body was that toned. He had an urge to see, to run his hands over her long, slender body and see if her skin wa
s as silky and smooth as it looked, to see if her body was as strong as he suspected it was.

  Generally Vax liked his women with a little meat on them, some nice soft curves. But damn if she wasn’t appealing. Heat began to pulse through his veins, pooling in his loins. As he stared into her eyes, his cock started to stiffen until he had to shift around in his seat to get a little relief.

  Apparently she could read him as well as he couldn’t read her. Because she started to blush. “I didn’t peg you as the type to blush so easily, Miz Warren,” he teased.

  Instead of responding, she changed the subject. “What is the pressing matter?”

  Vax shrugged. His interest wasn’t going anywhere, and neither was her careful lack of a reaction to it. If the interest remained, he’d pursue it later. If not…well, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d lost interest in something.

  He cut into his omelet with his fork and popped the first bite into his mouth. After he’d swallowed, he took a sip of coffee and then he responded, “Debach.”

  “MAGICK, my dear friends, lies not in the heart and soul as so many have always thought.”

  William sat in his seat at Thomas’s right hand, listening with a smile on his face.

  Years of hard work, years of bloodshed, years of careful planning had led to this. Thomas had spent nearly a century on this research, preparing for this very moment. William could tell he was relishing every second.

  As Thomas continued to speak, William turned and studied the images of various CT scans. Most of these people had absolutely no clue what they were looking at, other than brains.

  Fools.

  Only one of the brains came from a normal subject, one with no gift, no talent, no magick whatsoever. The other scans came from various subjects, werewolves, vampires, telepaths, Empaths, witches, and psychics. Psychics and vampires were proving the hardest to pin down, but William was content to let them go.

  What mattered to him were the six images that belonged to witches. Some had come into the power completely. Two of them were latent. They hadn’t come into their power until after they’d been taken. It wasn’t an unheard-of thing. Some mortals had magick in their blood, but it never manifested itself. They were born unknowing and lived their lives without ever having a clue that they could have been so much more. But on rare occurrences, those latent witches came into their talents as a result of some brutal, traumatic shock to the senses.

  Like rape. Or torture.

  It was something, that rush of power he could glean from them as they lay there struggling to live. The very weapon they needed to survive was within their grasp, but they didn’t recognize it for what it was and couldn’t control it. William did hate waste.

  “Years of careful research and exhaustive studies have proven what I always suspected,” Thomas continued, and William fought not to let his boredom show. The man was a brilliant scientist, dedicated and determined. But he loved to listen to himself talk. “Magick is a thing of the brain. We’ve discovered an interesting anomaly in witches—an overdeveloped frontal lobe. The frontal lobe controls creative thinking and—”

  There was a mocking laugh. Leona Mackie stood and flicked a dismissive hand towards the scans. “What a load of rubbish,” she said. She had a crisp British accent and still spoke like the Victorian chit she’d been when she had come into her power. She had just gotten married, and her brute of a husband had apparently scared the talent into wakening when he’d come to their marriage bed and raped her. “Magick is not science. We are not creatures of science. We simply…are,” she finished with a dramatic flourish.

  “My lady, I beg to differ,” Thomas said gently. “There is no denying my results. Years of research back it up. We are indeed creatures of science. I can explain exactly what it is inside your pretty skull that makes you a witch, and I can tell you about the chemicals that spike during the full moon and cause weres to Change. I can tell you how the blood of a vampire mutates during his transition and why we need to feed on blood.”

  Leona sniffed delicately. She smoothed down the collar of her pink Chanel pantsuit, looking at Thomas with distaste. “I care not what makes me a witch. I care that I am a witch, that I have power mortals only dream of. That is all that matters.”

  William interrupted before Thomas could try to make Leona see the more practical side of his research. “Then perhaps you do not need to be here for this meeting….”

  She turned a pair of ice blue eyes on him and stared at him. Then, just like that, she was gone.

  Thomas gave William a disgruntled stare. William shrugged. “Not all will understand the impact this could have, my friend. But others will much appreciate it. So why waste our time on those who choose not to open their eyes?”

  “This is all very fascinating, I’m sure. But what does any of this have to do with us? Why shouldn’t we go, just like Leona?”

  William glanced at Thomas before looking towards the speaker. It was Paulo, a vampire who had seen more than six centuries pass, if William remembered correctly. “You would think that a creature as old as you would understand the ramifications of this information.”

  Paulo’s black eyes narrowed to slits. “You’d think that a pup as young as you would show caution when speaking to a vampire as old as I am.”

  Smiling at the vamp, William said, “Oh, I did show caution. If I had been careless, I would have called you a stupid, shortsighted fuck.”

  Paulo lunged, and William rolled to the side. As he surged to his feet, he flung out a hand. Fire bloomed, and he hurled it towards Paulo. Just a millisecond before it would have touched the vampire’s flesh, William snuffed it out. “Be careful, Paulo. Our research has revealed many, many interesting things.”

  As William turned to face the others, he found that all eyes were on him. He gave them a toothy grin as he lowered himself back into his seat and gestured towards Thomas. “Please, my friend, continue.”

  Thomas smiled and lifted a pointer from the desk, tapping the end against a small portion of the brain. “There is a chemical secreted, one that is unique to witches. Each paranormal creature actually has several physical anomalies unique to their race, but witches…This is the most interesting and the most versatile. We’ve learned that we can harvest the chemical. Injection into a host body causes a slight mutation of the frontal lobe within three days. Within a month, the frontal lobe has gone into a state of hyperdevelopment. Within six months, fifteen percent of our selected study participants started to show signs of latent magickal power. With the proper guidance, we can bring this latent magick to the fore.”

  Thomas fell silent, and William looked out at the group gathered at the conference table. “We can build our own witches—men and women that we hand select.”

  His sharp ears detected the harsh intake of breath from several of the living creatures, and even from one or two of the undead. Paulo studied the scans on the wall with renewed interest. “Build them from what?”

  With a smile, William replied, “From our numbers. Any of our ilk who choose to undergo the process are welcome.”

  “Any of our ilk,” Paulo repeated. And then he began to laugh, tipping his bald head back and laughing until tears streamed from his eyes. “You are a young fool. You cannot crossbreed a witch with a vampire. Or with a shape-shifter. We’ve tried to turn witches, and if they survive the bite, they rarely Change. The Change kills them.”

  “Usually, yes.” It was Naomi who spoke, a tall, regal woman with hair the color of cinnamon, and yellow-green eyes. Those eyes remained the same whether she was in human form or in wolf form. “On rare occasions, a witch can survive the attempt to convert. But the witch’s power cancels out our mark.”

  Thomas gestured towards William. “Here is living proof that we indeed can harvest our own breed of witches.”

  Holding Paulo’s gaze, William lifted his hand and breathed into his cupped palm. As the warm air struck his hand, it ignited. William looked away from Paulo and studied the rest of his guest
s, tossing the fireball back and forth between his palms. “It is quite possible to forge both gifts into one creature. The Hunters have their own half-breeds. Some of us have faced them down a time or two. Many lesser creatures have fallen under the hands of such Hunters. It’s very rare, but when you can force both powers inside one creature, each gift is enhanced by the other.”

  “For instance…” William studied the fireball. It didn’t actually touch his flesh. He could barely feel the warmth from it right now. But as he cupped both hands around it and moved it closer to his chest, his flesh began to burn from its intensity. He pushed the fireball against his chest. The scent of burning cloth filled the air, and several people swore.

  Paulo rose from his chair and moved closer, studying William with wide eyes. “Wolves burn under a witch’s fire. Like a bonfire, they burn.”

  William smiled and crushed the fire into his chest. But instead of incinerating him as the fire would have done two or three years ago, it sizzled, flickered, and then extinguished itself. All that remained was the fading red spot on his chest, surrounded by the charred remains of his linen shirt. “Fire is little threat to me now.”

  He passed a hand through the air, palm down. Then he flipped it over, revealing a flaming orb. “Imagine the possibilities, Paulo.”

  “Oh, I am, wolf. Indeed I am.” Paulo smiled, revealing a mouth full of crooked, dirty teeth. The only two clean, white teeth were his incisors. The man’s hygiene in his mortal life must have been abominable, William mused. Of course, dentists weren’t something found in the average fifteenth-century Spanish village. It was probably a miracle that the man had teeth left in his head when he died. The thought amused William, and he contemplated it for a brief second—toothless vampires.

  Naomi moved closer, reaching out to touch his chest with her fingertips. “Amazing. Not one mark.”

  His body had already absorbed the faint red burn, and as she stroked his flawless skin, he smiled at her, meeting her odd yellow-green gaze.