Hunter's Salvation (11 page)

“Elsa has spent a great deal of time training Dena lately,” Thomas murmured from behind.

William had been so focused on her that he had forgotten about Thomas. He glanced over his shoulder and then looked back at Dena's image. “Has she?”

“Hmm-hmm. She's mastered fire. She's learning how to use her own sense of magick to sense others. It's rather amazing—she's gone from a penny-ante witch to this. She will be a force to reckon with. I also believe that with a little instruction, she will master her shape-shifting equally quickly.” Thomas said it in a neutral tone, but William heard the unasked question clearly enough.

William wasn't much of a teacher, nor did he care to think of himself in that particular role. However, it might be best to get an idea of Dena's abilities. She had the power inside her. William sensed it. If she could master it, it would add that much more to their army. “I can give it a shot, work with her a little.”

Right now, Dena was pacing back and forth along the clear, reinforced wall that made up the front of her cell. The camera was positioned just outside, far enough back that they had a bird's-eye view of the cell. And of Dena.

She wore a plain black tank top and nothing else. William could see the naked curve of her ass as she paced up the floor, and when she turned back, he could see the gentle sway of her braless breasts. The rooms were a bit chilly and her nipples were hard.

William liked it. He liked the entire package. Her tight, muscled ass; her long legs; her big breasts and nipples. There was plenty to like. Working with her could be a lot of fun.

She stopped and stared at the camera. William found himself staring at her image on the monitor in front of him. Her wide-spaced eyes looked black. She had straight, thick brows and a long sensual mouth. She rose up onto her toes and tapped the camera lens. “What are you doing in there?”

William rocked back on his heels, studying her. Behind him, Thomas chuckled. “I'm amazed at how her talent has grown. I can't understand why I can't duplicate these results.”

“She's one of a kind, Thomas. That's why. She isn't just the end result of an experiment.” William leaned forward, staring intently at her image.

“Unique.”

 

V
AX
rubbed his head. The lingering headache was nothing in comparison to what he had felt when Jessica Warren dropped her shields and made him feel the pain she lived with daily.

The diner was all but empty, and the waitress didn't seem to be in any hurry to stop by their table. It was as much privacy as he figured they were going to get. He doubted she was in any hurry to invite him back to her house, and he wasn't about to have this discussion out on the street.

“Where did you learn to shield?” Vax asked. She had closed back up again, hiding behind those impenetrable shields.

“My mother,” she answered softly, without ever raising her gaze from the Formica tabletop.

“Did she train your sister, too?”

Another quick glance at him, and then she went right back to looking at the table. “Yes. Mom and Dad died a few years ago. Randi was born with her gift, and Mom started working with her as soon as Randi was old enough to talk. She had to. Randi couldn't leave the house, even as a baby, unless Mom shielded her.”

“What about you?”

Jess shrugged, a faint smile on her face. “Mine came with puberty. Bad enough I got the acne and the hormonal bullshit, and was taller than most of the boys in my grade. But I had this little problem—I got mad or worried or embarrassed or nervous…things started floating around me. That sure as hell made me an extrovert,” she drawled, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Vax smiled a little. “I imagine. You certainly got it under control, though. I can't get a read on you at all.”

Finally a real smile curved her lips, a thoughtful one. Her eyes took on a far-off look. “I had a good teacher.”

“She must have been amazing.” Little wisps of envy curled through him. He hadn't ever had that, a mom to miss. He'd never known her. He didn't know whether she'd abandoned him or whether she'd died having him. Either one was a likely possibility. He didn't know which of his parents had been white, which had been Native American. He did know that the stigma of being a half-breed bastard was one he would have lived with no matter what. Wouldn't have been easy on his mother, either. “You miss her.”

“A lot.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest, finally meeting his gaze. Her eyes were troubled. “Mom would have been able to save her.”

“You don't know that.” Better than most, Vax understood the kind of guilt she must be feeling. It was the kind of guilt that turned to acid inside the heart and ate a person alive. Before she could say anything else, he added, “This isn't your fault. The blame lies with the men who took her, not with you.”

She shrugged and shook her head. “Up here, I know that.” She tapped her brow. Then she lowered her hand to her chest, covering her heart. “In here, it's a different story.”

He knew all too well what she meant. He still hadn't forgiven himself for what had happened to Cora. Didn't know if he ever would. Abruptly, he changed the subject, tugging the picture out of his back pocket and studying it. “You said his name was William Masters. And the other…Thomas?”

“Thomas Fitzpatrick.”

“How many victims?”

“That the police know of? Seven. But…” Her voice trailed off, and she turned her head to stare out the window into the night. “But I think there are more. These women who are missing—I think there are more. There was a spike in unexplained disappearances. The cases are all open, and although the cops won't admit it, they do suspect there is a link, at least among some of them. I think this goes a lot deeper than just the average run-of-the-mill psycho.”

“How so?”

Now she started to squirm on her seat. “It's hard to explain,” she mumbled. She put her hands on the table, spreading her fingers wide, curling them into a fist, then spreading them open again. “I felt something.”

Vax began to speak, but the waitress moved in their direction. He looked down at his menu, but she didn't stop. She headed past them, and Vax heard a door open. As the waitress disappeared into the bathroom, he looked back at Jess with curious eyes. “Felt something or sensed something? You psychic, too?”

“Just barely.” She shifted on the seat and reached for her water. She closed both hands around it, but instead of drinking it, she just stared into it. “It's more like just really good intuition. I tend to know when there are cops doing radar, and I can tell when somebody is lying to me. Comes in handy in my job, but that's about it. But something just felt wrong.”

“Felt wrong when?”

She squirmed more. “Every time one of the victims was found. I went to see most of them in the morgue. When a body was found, I went to the crime scene. And I…felt something.”

Something
had better not mean what Vax suspected it meant.

Ten minutes later, though, Vax knew it did. Real magick wasn't something Jess had much experience with. Her mother was a psychic, her sister an Empath—she was familiar with psychic skills and with Empathy, but real magick was different. It felt different. Trying to explain magick to a psychic might be like trying to explain colors to the color-blind. Took a while for her to get it, but once she got it…

It was witch power she'd felt. Fading and weak, but there all the same.

He heaved out a sigh and pushed a hand through his hair. Across from him, Jess stared at him with unreadable eyes and asked, “So do you think I'm crazy?”

“Unfortunately I don't. Life would have been a lot easier if I could just write you off as a nutcase.” He fell silent for a minute, turning everything over in his mind. “Do you know if any of the victims were drained?”

“Not one of them.” Jess rubbed her hands over her face. “I checked. That was something that would have made sense. A vamp might keep a woman alive for a while, keep her clean, keep her fed until he got tired of her.”

“You've put a lot of thought into this.” She looked exhausted. There were lines of strain fanning out from the corners of her eyes, and she was so pale, he half expected to be able to see through her. She sat with her shoulders slumped, as though there were some invisible weight on her shoulders. He imagined there likely was.

Vax wondered when she'd last had a decent night's sleep.

A cynical smile curved her lips. “What else am I supposed to do?”

Instead of responding to that, he blew out a breath and shoved away from the table. He stood up and held out a hand to her. “Come on.”

Jess glanced towards the waitress. “You haven't even ordered yet. I thought you were hungry.”

With a sardonic smile, he drawled, “I am. But if we wait for her to take our order, we'll be waiting until doomsday. We've got work to do, so my belly will have to wait a while.”

Vax suspected that if he found what he expected to find, his appetite was going to wither up and die. He had some protein bars stashed on his bike, so he'd just eat one of them on the way.

Once they were outside the diner, he told her where he wanted to go and she just stared at him for a moment. Finally she pushed her hair back from her face and shook her head. “Why are we going to the cemetery? Randi was the last victim, and that was months ago.”

“It's not Randi's grave I need, Jess. And you don't need to go there, either. I get the feeling you're spending way too much time there. I need to visit the graves of the other women. And their homes.”

She just gave him a puzzled look. “Why?”

“To see if they had any gifts,” he replied.

Vax had a bad feeling that they would find most, if not all, of the women had been gifted. It might have made sense if they had been drained of blood. Blood from gifted people had a stronger kick. Some feral vamps preyed on witches for just that reason. But they weren't drained.

He doubted it was a witch, either. The only reason a witch would hunt other witches would be to steal their powers using blood magick. Witches who walked the blood path had ways of tapping into the energy of gifted people, whether they were mortal or otherwise, and using the power to enhance their own. But blood-path magick left a taint he would have felt. Hell, Hunters from a thousand miles away would have felt that. A bloody, violent death was what the blood-path demanded and during the time of death, a witch could steal the power. But it wasn't a subtle thing. They couldn't hide it.

So if it wasn't a vampire and it wasn't a blood-path witch, who was doing it? Why?

He had to agree with Jess. So far it didn't feel like random pointless violence. There had to be a reason. He'd have to find out why before he could kill the men responsible. If he didn't, somebody else might just take up where they left off.

That wasn't an option.

 

“I
HATE
being right.” Vax slid her a sidelong look and added, “I also hate
you
being right.”

They hadn't felt anything at the grave of Greta Sanders. Greta had been murdered five months before Randi Warren, and she'd been missing for four months before they'd killed her. Vax hadn't expected to feel much at her grave, with her being gone so long. That sort of aura hung around a dead body only so long before fading away.

Her home, though—that was a whole different story. There was enough power still lingering around to make his hair stand up on end.

A young couple lived there now. Vax could hear them—they had a new baby, and she wasn't happy. Through his shields, he sensed an upset stomach and suspected that the couple would be taking the baby to the doctor come morning. Right now they were both frustrated and exhausted.

He sensed the power under all of that, and it didn't come from the family living there now. They hadn't been there long enough. Even after nine months, Greta's power was still in the air.

“Right about what?” Jess had her hands tucked into the pockets of her jacket, and she hunched her shoulders against the cold.

He shifted so that he stood in front of her and blocked some of the wind. Watching her face, he said, “She was a witch.”

“Ahhh…so?”

It was twilight, and the red and gold light gleamed against her pale skin. She looked entirely too touchable, Vax decided. She stood there glaring at him. Her hands were fisted on narrow hips, and Vax had the urge to replace them with his own. To pull her against him and cover that scowling mouth with his. His cock throbbed.
Like things aren't complicated enough,
he thought sourly. She was skinny and mouthy, and seemed to be irked with him 90 percent of the time. Not to mention he had known her for less than forty-eight hours.

There should be no reason for him to be this obsessed with her. Why the hell he couldn't stop thinking about seeing her naked was beyond him.