Touched by Darkness – An Urban Fantasy Romance (Book 1, The Sentinel Series)

by Catherine Spangler

  Whenever she tried to vanquish those visions, Damien’s last words took their place: “The safety of Zorro’s residents could well depend on your willingness to have sex with me.”

  The hell with that, she thought, tossing and turning, while Alex slept soundly beside her.

  And yet, she was hard-pressed to come up with a single, logical reason for refusing to enter into conduction-induced sex, except for the fact she had never been one to indulge in sex with no emotional attachments. There was certainly no emotional bond between her and Damien Morgan. Just her personal ghosts and the fact he was a trained assassin.

  Her thoughts went in circles most of the interminable night, and during that time, she decided to do something she had sworn she’d never do. With the decision made, she finally drifted into an uneasy sleep, where she was plagued by nightmares of Richard and Doris being murdered, and ghosts chasing Alex.

  When they got up the next morning, Alex was clingy and still upset by Doris’s death, so Kara let him go to her office instead of school. She felt better having him close by, anyway. She drew comfort from his presence, especially when her first order of business was a phone call she dreaded making.

  Alex spent most of the morning in her office, working on school assignments and playing games on her computer. Once she caught him researching ghosts on the Internet. She put an immediate stop to that, threatening to take away all computer privileges if he didn’t stay within permitted boundaries. She was amazed a six-year-old even knew how to surf the Internet, but then Alex had never been an ordinary child, and he had been reading since he was four.

  Around noon, she was finishing up with Tina Meyers’s six-month immunizations, her ears ringing from the baby’s screams of pain and outrage, when her nurse, Susan, cracked open the examining room door. “Dr. Kara, you have a phone call from Damien Morgan. Do you want to take it?”

  “Yes, I do. Please have Bonnie tell him I’ll be with him in a moment.” She turned back to Amanda Meyers. “Be sure and give Tina some baby Tylenol when you get home. She’ll probably be fussy for the rest of today. Call me if you have any questions.”

  She stepped out of the room, thinking her ears might never recover, but she preferred to give the babies their shots rather than letting Susan do it. She loved doctoring children, and had almost chosen pediatrics over family medicine for her specialty.

  Entering her office, she glanced over to see that Alex was playing an approved computer game. “Hey sweetie. I need to take a phone call in here.”

  “Sure Mom.” His attention never deviated from the screen.

  Resting her hip on the side of the desk, she picked up the phone and pushed the line button. “Hello.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Somehow, Damien’s deep, rough voice was oddly comforting, made her feel less alone. “I’m all right,” she replied. “What about you?”

  “No closer to knowing anything than last night. Can you estimate how long it might be before the autopsy on Mrs. Burgess comes back?”

  Just the mention of the autopsy put Kara’s stomach into knots. The subject had come up earlier today when she called Doris’s daughter to offer her condolences. Sharon Wills had been distraught with grief, made worse by the fact that she couldn’t plan her mother’s funeral until the body was released to the funeral home.

  It had been an upsetting conversation, made worse by Kara’s guilt from the knowledge that she’d been the one to insist on the autopsy. She sighed, forced her thoughts back to the present. “Unless they have a big backlog, the medical examiner’s office should do the autopsy within two or three days. The report might take longer, maybe to the end of next week.”

  “It won’t affect our search for the Belian; we already know Mrs. Burgess was murdered,” Damien said. “But it might affect how the police deal with the situation. By the way, were you aware that Alex called me an hour ago?”

  She glanced sharply at her son, but he was engrossed in the game. Turning away, she lowered her voice. “No, I wasn’t. I don’t even know how he got your phone number.”

  “He told me it was on your ‘flippy thing.’”

  “Oh…he must mean my Rolodex. Yes, I put it in there after the gho—after Wednesday afternoon.”

  “I see. Well, he’s obviously very resourceful.”

  “You’ve got that right. What did he want?”

  “Questions about ghosts. About whether or not Doris was in heaven, or if her spirit was still here, that kind of thing.”

  Kara rolled her eyes. “Great. What did you tell him?”

  “That we would discuss it more tomorrow. How about I pick both of you up around two?”

  “Pick us up? Why not at the house like before?”

  “When I work with Alex on controlling his abilities, he might accidentally broadcast. I don’t want to take a chance of attracting anything.”

  Ghost or Belian, she thought, suddenly chilled. Her middle-of-the-night decision firmed into a solid resolution. “All right,” she said. “We’ll see you at two.”

  “Bring jackets.” He disconnected.

  “Good-bye to you, too,” she muttered, putting the receiver back into the cradle.

  “Who was that, Mom?”

  “Mr. Morgan.” She faced her son. “Don’t you think you should have asked me if you could call him?”

  He fidgeted with the mouse. “Sorry. He told me to call him if I had any questions, and I found his number in your flippy thing.”

  She wanted to tell Alex that being so fearful about the ghost wouldn’t help anything, but how could she tell her son not to be afraid when there was so much to fear? So very much. She tensed, thinking about her newest decision. “It’s called a rolodex. I don’t mind you calling Mr. Morgan when you have questions, but from now on, please tell me first, okay?”

  He nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

  She rose from the desk. “I have to run an errand. If you’ll stay here with Bonnie and Susan—and keep off the Internet—I’ll bring us back some lunch.”

  “Why can’t I go with you?”

  “Because I have some business I need to take care of. But I’ll bring you a hamburger from the Busy Bee. How does that sound?”

  He considered a moment. “With cheese fries?”

  “All right.”

  “And a strawberry milkshake?”

  “You’re pushing your luck, buddy.”

  He grinned, and the world suddenly seemed a little brighter. “We can share it.”

  “You’re taking advantage of the situation,” she accused, reaching over to give him a quick hug. “But I’ll do it, just this once.”

  She got her purse, spoke briefly with Bonnie and Susan, and left. Getting the food from the Busy Bee was the easiest part of her trip. It was the other item of business that weighed on her.

  * * * *

  The gun she purchased at Turner Sporting and Hunting was a Beretta semiautomatic, which could be fired repeatedly without having to reset it—or so Jerry Turner assured her. He also said the flat design was easier to conceal, and the .40 caliber had good stopping power. Kara held the gun, testing its grip, and a wave of memories rushed at her, taking her back to Birmingham, over seven years ago. She had learned how to use a gun when she and Richard were together, but at the time, she’d had no way of knowing what was going to happen…. No, she wouldn’t go back down that path.

  At least she knew she could handle the kick of the .40, once she was back in practice. And she intended to practice as soon as possible—tomorrow morning, before Damien picked them up. With so many hunting enthusiasts in central Texas, there were gun clubs and practice ranges in the general area.

  It only took a few minutes for Jerry to run Kara’s information through NICS, the federal program denying or approving gun sales; then the gun, along with ammunition and a packet of forms to apply for a permit to carry a concealed weapon, was hers, and she was out over six hundred dollars. The cost had surprised her, as had the ease with which
she’d been able to obtain the weapon. And that’s what it was—a weapon, at least against the human body inhabited by the Belian in Zorro.

  She hated bringing a gun into the house, hated subjecting Alex to both the danger and the reality that they might need protection. But her determination to keep her son safe far outweighed her concerns over having a potentially deadly weapon in the house.

  There would be a grim discussion on gun safety and strict rules against Alex even looking at the gun (which would also be placed where he couldn’t readily access it). Kara could handle that part; it was explaining why they needed a gun that worried her most. As far as she knew, Alex had assumed that Doris had died in her sleep; but then, he was able to sense many things, so that was only an assumption.

  Still, she had no intention of telling her son that she’d bought the gun because there was a murderer—and a supernatural being at that—in Zorro.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Mom bought a gun yesterday!” were the first words out of Alex’s mouth when Damien entered their house Saturday afternoon.

  “I know.” Damien slanted a glance at Kara, who glared at her son in exasperation.

  “You know? How—no, wait.” She turned to Alex. “Get your jacket, young man. Then go give Mac some fresh water.” When he started to protest, she pointed toward the wall rack by the front door. “Now!”

  “Fine.” He stomped to the rack, pulled down his coat, and dragged it behind him as he moved toward the kitchen.

  “Watch the attitude,” Kara told him, “and pick up the pace. Stay outside with Mac until I call you.” She waited until they heard the back door open and close, then shook her head. “He’s such a—”

  “Boy?” Damien provided. “He’s just a kid. You getting a gun probably made a big impression on him.”

  “You could say that. He’s been full of questions since I told him about it. So how did you know?”

  “I heard it at Sal’s yesterday. I usually shop there in the afternoon, and just listen in and see if I can pick up information.”

  Kara eyed his large frame. Today he was wearing stonewashed Levis, a dark gray turtleneck sweater, and black, tooled-leather western boots. He’d traded in the duster for a tailored black leather jacket that looked killer on him. The man could definitely wear leather, and the dark colors suited him.

  As always, the electricity hummed between them, stirring up physical urges. The firsthand knowledge of just how powerful that chemistry was hovered uncomfortably in the back of her mind. What did you say to a man who’d been inside your body figuratively, had been inside your most intimate thoughts and feelings; who’d felt your raging lust; and who would have been all too willing to screw your brains out—even if it was theoretically for an altruistic purpose?

  It had been all right talking to him on the phone, but facing him in person after Thursday night’s conduction was unnerving. She took a few safe steps to the fireplace, busied herself straightening the pictures on the mantle. “You’re pretty noticeable,” she said. “Don’t you think lurking around Sal’s might raise suspicions?”

  He shrugged. “I’m a stranger in town and that automatically makes me a suspicious character. It’s possible the Belian will home in on me because I’m new here, but that’s a risk I’ll have to take. Tell me about the gun.”

  She leaned her back against the mantle. “It’s a Beretta, semiautomatic, .40 caliber.”

  “Nice weapon. But it might not offer much protection against a Belian.”

  “The Belian is in a human body, isn’t it? At least the body can be killed, be it Belian or Sentinel,” Kara said fiercely. “I can tell you that for a fact, from personal experience.”

  “I know that.”

  “You carry weapons. Don’t tell me you don’t,” she challenged. Richard had always carried a gun and a knife, at the very least. He’d said that sometimes the only choice was to kill a Belian outright, without performing the expulsion.

  “Yes, I carry weapons,” Damien said. “But I’m prepared to use them. Are you?”

  “I am.” Her chest tightened. “It’s not like I want to kill anyone. I’m a doctor, for God’s sake! I’m sworn to save lives, not take them.” But sometimes, there was no choice. She curled her fingers into fists. “No one is going to hurt my child. I’m not just going to sit here and hope nothing happens. If push comes to shove, I’ll do whatever it takes to protect Alex.”

  “I’m not telling you not to protect yourself. Just be sure you can pull the trigger, and don’t underestimate the Belian. Don’t let the gun give you a false sense of security. Do you know how to handle it?”

  Oh, yes. She managed a nod. “Richard insisted I get training in using a gun. After he…died…and I learned I was pregnant, I disposed of my gun before moving here. I was determined I’d never need it again, and that my child would never be exposed to that sort of violence.” She managed to draw a breath into her constricted lungs. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

  His silver gaze was steady, disconcerting. “Kara, despite free will, we can’t always control the paths our lives take. Some of that is pre-patterned before we’re born.”

  She resented the implacable logic that seemed to be an innate Sentinel trait. “Yeah, well, I intend to control what I can.” She walked around him to get her coat. “Where are we going?”

  * * * *

  They went to Blanco State Park, on the southern edge of the town of Blanco. It was situated right along the Blanco River. Damien suggested they go where they could be near the water, but didn’t want to risk working with Alex too close to the part of the river that edged Zorro.

  Kara had always liked the small park, with its grassy expanse that ran along the green water, and the assortment of mature trees—gnarled live oaks, bald cypresses, cottonwoods, to name a few.

  When Damien mentioned the park, she’d had the foresight to pack a blanket and two thermoses—one with coffee and one with hot chocolate—before they left. And somehow, a soccer ball got thrown into his car, although no one would claim responsibility.

  They arrived at the park and found it had a fair number of visitors. Even in March, people came to fish, and sat along the bank in canvas chairs, casting their lines; some even perched on the dams stretching across the narrow river to fish. A small gaggle of geese honked noisily and waddled around, looking for food, in the form of handouts from visitors.

  Kara spread the blanket on a grassy, sunny spot on the riverbank, a discreet distance from the people who were fishing. The geese immediately headed their way, but a quick flick of Damien’s hand sent them the other direction.

  “Cool,” Alex said, his eyes glowing.

  “Nothing you need to be trying,” Kara told him.

  “Your mom’s right.” Damien settled on the blanket next to Alex. “If you try to do stuff like that, you might not stay shielded.”

  Grateful for his input, which she knew would hold more weight with Alex than her motherly nagging, Kara settled on the other side of her son. He had carried the soccer ball from the car, and it rested on the ground beside him.

  A slight breeze amplified the coolness of the day. She poured herself a cup of coffee and wrapped her hands around the mug, savoring the warmth. Damien rested his right forearm on his upraised knee, leaning down to talk to Alex, who mimicked his position. The sunlight reflected off the glossy black of Damien’s tied-back hair, and not for the first time, she wondered if he had Indian or Hispanic ancestors. His coloring created a stark contrast to Alex’s much lighter brown hair and warm skin tones.

  “Water can enhance conduction of energies,” Damien was explaining. “Are you allowed to have the radio or blow-dryer near the bathtub?”

  “No way! Mom would split a seam.”

  “Why?”

  “If the blow-dryer fell in the water, I could get ‘lectrocuted.”

  “Do you know why?”

  Alex considered a moment. “Somethin’ about electricity.”

  “E
xactly right,” Damien said. “The water acts as a natural conductor for the electricity, which travels through it very quickly, and at a greater intensity. It works the same way with your powers.”

  “Does it work that way for you, too?” Alex asked, wide-eyed.

  “Yes. As Sentinels, we are of the water. It grounds us, carries the essence of our heritage.”

  Kara gripped her mug more tightly, reminded herself to not interfere unless Damien went too far over the line.

  “Maybe that’s why I like to stay in the shower so long,” Alex said. “I get all wrinkled, and Mom makes me get out.”

  “I’m sure that’s part of it. So a good place to work on making stronger shields or controlling your powers is in the shower, or near water, like the river, which is why we’re here today. But,” Damien added, with a glance at Kara, “you never head off to the river or a pool without telling your mom first, right?”

  “Right.” Alex nodded his head vigorously. “She’d ground me for a month if I went anywhere without telling her or Luz.”

  “All right. Have you been working on centering yourself?”

  Alex nodded again.

  “Then let’s start by centering ourselves.” Damien placed his hand over the middle of his chest, curled his fingers slightly and took a deep breath. Kara felt a flare of energy.

  Alex must have felt it, too, because he reached up and grasped Damien’s hand. “What did you do? It feels different. Why is your hand like that?”

  “It’s an automatic reflex. I wear a crystal that helps me to center more quickly,” Damien explained, patting his chest. “And it helps me use my powers.”

  “I can feel it.” Alex looked up at him. “Can I see it?”

  “In a moment.” Damien closed his eyes, took another deep breath.

  Kara felt the energy again, only this time it seemed to be flowing around them. She guessed he was expanding his own shield around all of them. Richard had always shielded her if she were nearby when he was working.

  “Now then.” Damien reached beneath the edge of his shirt, pulled out an exquisite yet sturdy silver chain. Dangling from it was a piece of pink-tinged quartz, framed in silver wire.