The Kindred

by L. L. Foster

  “No more questions?”

  “We do need to talk more, but it can wait until the morning.” He didn’t want to say too much yet, so he summarized with, “I don’t have to go in early, but I’m going to have to work late.”

  Gaby’s thoughts remained elsewhere. Puzzled, untrust ing in her own impression, she sought eye contact. “This is nuts. You really don’t mind what I did to the drug dealers? I mean, I cut them up pretty bad. I might even have maimed them for life.”

  Time for stark honesty. Luther put his hands on her shoulders and met her gaze. “I would have preferred that you call me, to see if I could offer an alternative solution to . . . maiming them. Sometimes, you know, the legal system does work.”

  She snorted.

  Yeah, he already knew her thoughts on going by the book. “But, Gaby, as I’ve told you many times now, I trust your instincts.”

  “So you’re not pissed?”

  That she’d chosen once again to handle life on her own terms saddened him, but he couldn’t be angry with her for doing what she could to protect others. He shook his head. “I’m not mad.”

  Her brows scrunched down in disbelief. “No fucking way.”

  “Way.” Luther pressed a kiss to her frown. “Trusting you won’t stop me from worrying, or from trying to convince you to do things along a more legal path—and we’ll save that lengthy discussion for the morning. But, no, Gaby, I’m not going to lose sleep over cretins who would prey on the vulnerability of children.”

  Her chin came up and her small fists clenched. “I could have killed them without remorse.”

  “But you didn’t, and I appreciate that.” Showing restraint was new for Gaby, but Luther believed it was more her own sense of right and wrong that kept her from butchering the men. They were bad, but she could handle their immediate threat, and so she did.

  He’d come to realize that Gaby annihilated only those she believed posed a bigger menace to mankind, the truly heinous, soulless fiends who, even while imprisoned, would find a way to indulge their immoral debauchery.

  “You, Gabrielle Cody, have your own sense of fair play. Besides, having them in custody might help lead us to other drug distributors, buyers, and even pimps. It all trickles down a dozen different ways into society. Like dominoes, if one goes down, the others topple, too.”

  He stepped out of the tub and helped her out, then finished drying her legs.

  “I don’t understand you,” Gaby said to the top of his head as he kneeled before her.

  “For now, that’s okay.” He stood and patted her pert backside. “I know you haven’t completely unpacked yet, so I have a spare toothbrush if you need to use it.” He ran his fingers through her hair. “My comb is on the sink.”

  Taking the hint, she turned to the sink and rummaged through his belongings until she found what she wanted. Seeing Gaby naked at his sink, doing a routine chore like cleaning her teeth, gave him a sense of inevitability.

  Sooner or later, Gaby would accept him as part of her life.

  When she did a ruthless job attacking the tangles in her short hair, Luther winced and took the comb from her. She had baby-fine hair, inky black and liquid soft as it slipped through his fingers.

  Her physical appearance was a stark contrast to her hard-edged personality and purpose.

  When her hair lay smooth, Luther kissed her on the top of the head. “Why don’t you wait for me in the bedroom? I’ll only be a minute.”

  With a shrug of her shoulder, she agreed and went off to the bed. After Luther drained the tub and picked up their dirty clothes, he gathered the medicinal items he’d need for her arm.

  There were many things he wanted to do with her, to her, but her injury precluded those activities. Still, he had told her what would happen if she came home to him, and he couldn’t wait to show her exactly what he’d meant.

  Propped against the headboard on top of the covers, one leg straight out, the other bent at the knee, Gaby awaited him. She had one of the DVDs he’d rented and was reading the back.

  “Look interesting?”

  She turned the movie over and looked at the front. “What is it?”

  “A movie. We watch it on the television. I had hoped to watch it with you tonight, but . . . ” His turn to shrug. “You had other things to occupy your time.”

  She tossed it onto the nightstand. “Don’t expect me to feel guilty. Not for that. We can watch it tomorrow night, if you want.”

  Tomorrow night he’d be at a local rave known for catering to deviants of all sorts, but most especially to wannabe vampires.

  “Maybe.” If things worked out, he could get home early enough to crash on the couch with her. He seated himself beside her, causing the mattress to dip. “Let me have your arm.”

  “This is getting out of hand.” But she offered up her arm and then watched closely as he applied a healing ointment, a clean strip of gauze, and fresh surgical tape. Though the wound was still raw, Gaby never made a sound.

  “You’ll get used to me caring for you.” He hoped. “It’s what a man and woman do for each other when they’re . . . ” A proper word to explain their relationship eluded him, so he settled for, “involved.”

  Forced to scoot over as he slid into the bed, Gaby again went quiet as she assimilated the new suggestions.

  “If you’re saying I should pamper you, too, you’re bound for disappointment.”

  That made Luther grin. Gaby didn’t have it in her nature to hover over anyone. But she did, in her own unique way, show extra care when needed.

  “It’s different for men.” He tossed the covers to the end of the bed. “Right now, pampering me means letting me pamper you. And no, I won’t explain that tonight because there’s something else I want to do.”

  Her eyes went smoky with interest. “What?”

  Catching her hips, he pulled her flat to the mattress. “You’ll see.” And with that he started kissing her—her throat, her shoulder.

  She tipped her head to give him better access. “I don’t know why that feels so good.”

  Luther smiled against her skin. “Women have lots of sensitive places on their bodies.” He licked the inside of her elbow, then moved over to her ribs.

  Her hand knotted in his hair and she brought his face up. “Listen up, cop. I don’t want to hear about you with other women.”

  “I wasn’t going to go there, I swear.” He had to fight his amusement. A jealous Gaby could be deadly, so he shouldn’t provoke her. “Just saying that’s why you like it.”

  She let him go, but continued to scowl. “It sort of makes me shiver.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Holding her waist, he kissed his way down to her navel, then a hip bone.

  Gaby let out a soft sound of pleasure. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

  “You remember my promise, honey?” He urged her thighs farther apart and moved between them. “I told you how I’d kiss you.”

  “Where you’d kiss me.” Her hands knotted in the sheet. “I’m ready.”

  Like a sacrifice, she braced herself. Damn, but everything about her pleased him, most especially her sexual willingness.

  Luther took a minute to toy with her, to tease with his fingers until she squirmed, until she tightened all over.

  When he knew she was tense enough to break, he used his thumbs to open her, licked over her distended clitoris, and then drew her into his mouth.

  Her long, broken groan rewarded him for his patience.

  “Oh God, Luther . . . ”

  To keep her still, he flattened one hand on her stomach. With the other, he pressed two fingers deep into her, withdrew, pressed in again.

  She cried out, already on the edge of a climax. But he wanted to be with her, so with one last leisurely lick, he rose up over her.

  Her parted lips and heavy eyes proved her need. As fast as he could, Luther rolled on a condom, lifted her hips, and drove into her hard and fast.

  With that first deep stroke she started co
ming, her legs tight around his waist, her fingers digging into his shoulders.

  She was wild, hot, and so damn perfect for him.

  Arms straight, Luther stayed over her, watching her face, loving the way pleasure contorted her features. It pushed him past his own restraint and he felt his own burning release.

  Afterward, he collapsed atop her. She hugged him, her legs still around him, her soft mouth touching his neck. When he started to move, she squeezed him, so he settled back to her and just held her.

  “I’m not squashing you?”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  Damn it, even an insult from Gaby, at such a special time, could make him smile. He rolled to his side but brought her with him.

  “I need to get rid of the condom.”

  She smoothed a hand over his sweaty chest. “It’s crazy how much I enjoy your body.”

  “Ditto.” He kissed her, and then eased from the bed. When he returned only moments later, Gaby was just as he’d left her. She looked to be asleep. All in all, this was turning out to be easier than he’d first expected.

  He settled back into bed with her, pulled her in close, and closed his eyes.

  Then out of the blue, she turned her face up to his. “I meant to ask—what’s Viagra?”

  Chapter 8

  Humming to himself, content to transport his cargo, Fabian drove along the serene streets until he found a neighborhood offering what he required. Beneath scant moonlight and the occasional streetlamp, garbage cans and lawn bags waited at the end of each driveway.

  The houses were spaced far apart, and the denizens had turned in already, leaving the area dark and quiet. Not even a dog barked.

  Perfect.

  Ensuring that no one loitered near a window, he dimmed his car lights and coasted up to the curb of a tidy upper-middle-class home. Snickering to himself, thinking of how easy it was to dispose of the unused body parts, he released the latch to his trunk and put his car in park, but left it running.

  Donning surgical gloves, he dragged a weighty bag from his trunk and dropped it next to those already near the street, waiting for garbage pickup early the next morning. It blended right in.

  Snickering to himself, he gave a furtive check up and down the street, got back in his car, and maneuvered without headlights to the next block. As soon as he turned the corner, he turned his lights on, and, whistling, drove toward another house.

  In a fit of whimsy, he’d decided to scatter the body parts. Imagining the police trying to piece them together like a grisly jigsaw puzzle filled him with macabre amusement.

  Every time he drank, each time he feasted off another, his intellectual superiority expanded and his physical attributes grew more youthful, more dynamic. He possessed a sagacity and elite taste that exceeded those of everyday man.

  The police couldn’t stop him; they couldn’t even name him as the culprit.

  Through careful design, he’d re-created himself as an omnipotent leader. No one would uncover his select lifestyle unless he deemed it so.

  Soon, his agile calculation would manifest the ultimate sacrifice due him, a succulent meal that he’d bestow on the others. As a unit, they would commit the ultimate depravity.

  All he needed now was to find the perfect target.

  But first, he needed to finish ridding himself of the waste.

  Dry-eyed, skin rippling with chills, Gaby stood naked, staring out the window. Fear was so new to her that she couldn’t fathom how to cope.

  She didn’t want to awaken Luther . . . but then again, she did. Fuck. In a very short time she’d become a needy, whiny fool.

  “Gaby?”

  Closing her eyes, she swallowed and attempted to regulate her voice, to hide the repulsive despair. Too much depended on her being a paladin.

  Without looking at Luther, she said, “There’s more that I should tell you.”

  A heavy pause preceded Luther’s calm concern. “Why don’t you come back to bed and we’ll talk?”

  No, if she got back in bed with him, she’d want things she shouldn’t. Like respite from duty. Like . . . normalcy. “No, Luther. I can’t.” An odd constriction in her throat made it difficult to squeeze the words out. But the import of her words demanded voice. “It . . . it’s eating me up inside until I feel like I’m going to . . . I don’t know. Explode. Destroy something.”

  She heard the creaking of the bed, then felt Luther’s arms come around her. And oh God, it felt good.

  Too good.

  “You can tell me anything,” he whispered, “and somehow, we’ll figure it out.”

  That he believed such nonsense only added to her agitation. Some things, like her purpose on earth, would never be so easily divined.

  Breathing hurt, but then, she’d hurt for so much of her life, what did that matter? Pain kept her sharp, in senses and in body. She needed the pain now.

  Pain she could handle.

  It was the invasive weakness that would be her undoing—and still she turned into Luther’s comforting embrace, holding him so tight that her arms ached.

  She shouldn’t share her appointed onus with anyone, much less someone as pure as Luther. It wasn’t fair to burden him.

  But he’d changed her, and she no longer had the internal fortitude to bear it all alone.

  Unable to face him as she detailed the awful, ugliest of possible crimes, Gaby told him about Bliss’s vision—and her own.

  “Your bloodsucker is still on the loose, Luther.”

  As if to soothe her from her worries, his hands rubbed up and down her back. “I know that. We’ll get him, Gaby. I swear. It might take some time—”

  “Yeah, well, unfortunately time is something you don’t have. Hate to break it to you, cop, but your guy isn’t just a bogus bloodsucker.” She had to take several quick, shallow breaths before giving him the truth. “The sick fuck also likes the taste of human flesh.”

  Luther stiffened. The ugly word barely squeezed past his abhorrence. “Cannibalism?”

  Gaby nodded. “Not just a cannibal, fucked up as that is.” Sick to her soul, she whispered, “He wants something special now. He wants . . . fresher meat.”

  With each word, Luther grew more rigid, until now, it was his hold that crushed.

  Gaby didn’t mind, though. Somehow, for whatever inane reason, being held by him made the possibility for resolution more plausible.

  Careful not to hurt her arm, Luther levered her away from him. At her disclosure of what she believed, what she had considered keeping from him, what she had thought to fight alone . . . Oh God.

  Fury and fear rolled together to obliterate his control.

  He struggled to keep his temper concealed from her. He knew Gaby, and if she suspected he wanted to lock her away for her own safekeeping, she’d leave him and never come back and everything they’d shared wouldn’t sway her one bit.

  His fingers bit into her shoulders, but he couldn’t help it, and she didn’t seem to notice. “I understand about Bliss. This isn’t the first time she’s claimed to have a strange foreboding about things, most often with morbid circumstances.”

  “And she’s been right every time.”

  Did that mean Gaby considered Bliss right in proclaiming them an item? According to Bliss, they were meant to be—and Gaby knew it.

  He let that go to tackle a bigger, more monumental question. “What I don’t understand is your vision.” He managed one leveling breath, and then another. “Care to explain?”

  She shivered, and then in a burst of energy she shoved him away. “I fucking hate this.”

  “This?”

  “Feeling this way.” She pressed a fist to her belly. “I’m cold, Luther. I’ve never been cold a day in my life. Other than thunderstorms, I don’t even notice the stupid weather.”

  He had no idea how to console her. Never had he known her to be susceptible to the cold, so she was changing. He’d already sensed it, and understood how hard it was for her.

  And still he re
lished it.

  But changing wouldn’t be an easy thing for Gaby to advocate.

  Her gaze sought his before she stepped away, putting a deliberate physical and emotional distance between them.

  “Always, every second of every day, there’s been this awful yawning pit inside of me. It’s been a part of me for as long as I can remember. It’s bleak and hungry and sick, but it’s buried deep where I can’t change it, and so I ignore it. It’s there, but I’ve made it unimportant.”

  “You’ve learned to function with it.”

  “I had no choice, damn it.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eye sockets. “Jesus, Luther, I want that awful, indifferent pit back.”

  Hurting for her, Luther stepped closer. “Because it’s familiar? Or because it was replaced with something that’s worse?”

  “Because now I can’t compartmentalize things.” She dropped her hands, but only to slug him in the shoulder, to close in on him with aggression and urgency. “You fucked it all up. You’ve got me confused and . . . and fucking cold.” Her trembling bottom lip was stilled only by the harsh compression of her mouth. “And needy.”

  She swallowed, but he heard the tears in her voice.

  “And . . . scared.”

  That admission cost her, sending savage emotion to wrack her body. She swallowed again, convulsively, but the tears still glistened in her sad, wounded eyes.

  He’d never seen Gaby cry and, God Almighty, it ripped him apart.

  If he touched her now, she’d resent the compassion, and it might send her over the edge. No matter how badly he needed to hold her, he couldn’t do that to her.

  Going to his closet, Luther found a flannel shirt and draped it around her. Holding the collar together under her chin, he put his forehead to hers and wished for a way to ease her turmoil.

  As a detective, the only way he knew to proceed was to get all the details he could. “Tell me about your vision, Gaby. Let’s start with that.”

  Angrily, she shrugged into the shirt, and then swiped a hand over her eyes. “Why not? It’s all so screwed up anyway.”

  She marched out of the room and down the hall to the spare bedroom she’d appropriated. Going to her knees, she bent at the waist and dug under the bed.