“So that’s a no on arts and crafts?”
When she sweeps her arm across a shelf, crystal shards rain down, tangling in my hair. At her next attack, some kind of dust explodes all over us, making me choke, but it hampers the crazy demonic assassin as well. Close up, I can see the uneven patches on her skin. Her eyes roll in her head, spinning like no human could manage, and that creeps me out enough that I almost drop my radio.
Almost.
I tug at the dials with cold, shaking fingers. I’ve never tried to summon whatever spirits might be listening, but I need help. So I spin at random and call out, “Restless dead, I summon you to this place, I call you to my aid.”
At first it seems like I’ve chosen a bad channel and nothing’s within the sound of my voice. Worried, I duck the heavy urn she hurls at me. If she keeps this up, she’ll destroy the store’s whole inventory. Also, she’ll open my head like a melon. Of the two, I’m more concerned about the latter.
I jiggle the dial and mutter the call again, and this time, I feel them coming. The temperature in the room drops by ten degrees, sending a chill down my spine. Tingles radiate outward from where my fingers are touching the radio, my energy fueling their hunger, but it’s not sated. I could never give enough to make them feel warm or whole. This is like tossing a few scraps to a starving predator. Though it’s dusk outside, that purple plum of a sunset, it’s darker still in the store, as if some pagan god dropped a black bag over the sun.
“Drain her,” I command.
Darkness swarms around the old woman. I stop running then, watching in horrified fascination as her body pulls taut, held by unseen hands. Her feet come up, nearly off the floor, and she quakes from head to toe. At first, she lashes out, snarling in incoherent rage, but her skin grows paler and paler, then the creature driving her body leaps away. It’s hard to distinguish its sooty swirl from my starving spirits, but I track the energy; it dives from the old woman into the telephone, and I’m astonished. Is that how demons travel? If they’re energy, it stands to reason they could pass in telephone or electrical wires, right? Holy shit. It makes me want to break all my electronics, right this minute. But I’m so busy pondering the implications that I almost forget to stop the feast.
“Stop!” I call. “Don’t kill her. Restless dead, I send you from this place.”
The room chills further, and I fear they won’t listen. Part of me wonders why they heed me at all. But the ghosts withdraw in a misty blur, quick as they came. The old woman drops in a heap on the floor, amid the wreckage. With trembling hands, I turn off the radio. There’s no sign of what truly happened here, apart from her collapse and my minor injuries. How the hell can I explain this?
Good thing I’ve got a cop on speed dial, but like usual, he’s already calling me. “Shan, what the f**k?”
“Hey. So can you please send EMTs…and I’d appreciate it if you came too. There will be questions…and I don’t know what to say.” I give him the address.
“Are you hurt?” He sounds frantic. I hear horns honking, Jesse swearing, and the screech of tires. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Sit tight. Wait, no, first get to a safe location and sit tight.” The fact that he’s repeating himself is kind of adorable.
“I’m not hurt. The ambulance is for someone else.” I kneel beside the old woman and press two fingers to her throat. “She’s alive but in bad shape.”
“Christ almighty, Shan.” He produces a string of curses that would impress me at any other time.
“I’m hanging up now. I’ll be here, and you need to focus on your driving.”
He’s still ranting when I cut the call. Sometimes I think Jesse’s not used to females like me. I sit down beside the old woman, feeling horrible and helpless, but was I supposed to let her kill me? I did the best I could. Heart heavy, I dig into my bag and produce a chocolate bar. Eating it keeps me from passing out.
Jesse arrives before the medical personnel. He runs through the shop, apparently not bothered by the aversion spell that rocked me in the front of the store. I guess if you can shake it off, you belong here. His cop instincts make him clear the room before he approaches, then he kneels beside me.
“What the hell happened here?”
I give him the nutshell version of how I remembered this place and thought visiting might help. Then I explain the woman’s weird reaction and how she went after me. He can tell by looking at her she’s been hosting for a while, as that’s not good for your health, but this account won’t satisfy the authorities.
Quickly, he searches the premises, and I watch, puzzled. “What’re you doing?”
“Quiet. I’ll deal with you later.”
Hm. I like the sound of that. So I shut up, letting him do his thing.
At last he comes back, seeming relieved. “This is a break for us. There are no security cameras, so we’ll go with an unknown assailant. Caucasian male, late twenties, brown hair, no distinguishing features.” He pauses. “That’s your report, right, Ms. Cheney?”
I see where he’s going with this. That’s too general a description to convict anyone; it applies to billions of men across the country. “Absolutely. He tore up the place and scared the clerk so bad, she had some kind of seizure. I ran away from him and called you…because we’re acquainted and I thought you might come faster than 911.” I wish I could use a stronger word to describe our relationship, but I rather doubt Jesse wants me to announce that I’d give a kidney to f**k him, especially in official documents.
The EMTs race in, just as I’m concluding this version of events. Other police officers arrive as well, and they start the inquiry. Jesse tries to shield me from the worst of it, but he can’t keep the rest of the force from trying to figure out what happened. Fortunately, the shop is busted up enough that they can’t be sure what kind of goods were sold. Some of the powders and potions would probably draw strange looks if the officers were reading the labels instead of questioning me.
The ambulance takes the old woman away, and I’m left repeating my story, hoping it doesn’t sound rehearsed. I don’t have to pretend I’m shaken or that I can’t remember much because, oh my God, it all happened so fast. I’ve seen enough cop shows to be confident these guys hear that all the time from agitated witnesses.
Finally, Jesse says, “I’d like to get the cuts on her hands checked out. I’ll make sure she comes in for a follow-up interview.”
“I think we’re good, actually.” The other cop puts away his notepad. “It was probably a tweaker, looking for some fast cash. Don’t imagine he found any in a place like this. They usually knock over convenience stores.”
“Maybe he was just in the neighborhood,” Jesse says with a straight face.
The uniformed officer laughs. “Crime of opportunity? Maybe. It doesn’t sound like much planning went into this.”
Soon after, Jesse escorts me to his SUV, makes sure I buckle up, and then he drives exactly two blocks. For the first time, I notice how tightly he’s locked himself down, like if he didn’t have his hands balled into fists, he’d be screaming and punching things. Is it odd that I find this self-control insanely hot, even while I’m contemplating all the delicious ways I can make him lose it?
He jams his finger into my seat belt button and drags me up into his arms, across the console and onto his lap. I settle, deciding this isn’t the time to fight him. Jesse runs his hands up and down my back, burying his face in the curve between my neck and shoulder. Tentative, I touch his jaw, bristly with scruff, and then walk my fingers up his cheek to his temple, stroking back toward his hair.
“I’m fine,” I whisper. “I handled it. I just needed an assist with the logistics afterward.”
“I can’t take this, Shan. Do you have any idea how much I worry? I think about someone hurting you and I can’t f**king breathe. I want to invent a hundred new kinds of pain and teach it to anyone who looks at you the wrong way.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” he snarls.
“That’s a copout. Or a lie.”
“Because you’re in me like a fever. I wake up thinking about you. I go to sleep that way. I find you in my dreams.”
“What’m I doing?”
“Me,” he bites out.
And then he kisses me like he needs me more than air. His mouth is fierce and hot, ravenous as he nuzzles into me, tongue surging in lavish strokes. I can feel his desire, both from the hard length under my ass, and because he’s totally lost the reins on his gift. Powerful empaths don’t just read emotions; they can also broadcast, but I’ve never known Jesse to do that. He’s off the chain now, though, wild as a Texas storm and twice as dangerous. He pulls me to him until I’m sure he’s leaving bruises on my hips. His emotions feed mine, which ratchets his need higher in turn, until we’re both damn near mad with lust.
I scramble, not fighting him, but helping, until I’m astride his lap. With a growled curse, he shoves the seat all the way back, making room. He bites down on my neck, hard enough to hurt, not quite enough to bruise, but I wouldn’t mind if he broke the skin. I’d be glad to walk around with Jesse’s teeth marks on my body. In fact the thought of it makes me hotter, and I move on him. He’s ablaze beneath me, panting against my lips.
We’re gonna do it. He can’t stop. I don’t want to.
Then someone taps on the window. Motherfucking bastard-ass shitballs—I melt down silently in frustrated rage. The glass is fogged up, so whoever it is can’t see us. My knees are weak when I slide off his lap. Jesse looks like he could happily tear somebody’s heart out with his teeth when he powers down the window.
“What?” he snaps.
It’s one of the uniformed officers from the scene, looking curious, terrified, and intrigued, all at the same time. “I saw your vehicle and I wondered if you’d broken down. You said you were taking her to the doctor…” His voice trails off, then he changes his mind. “I can see things are fine. Sorry to bother you.”