40. Meical
Chapter 40
Meical
S itting in front of the laptop, Urien shut it. “I can’t find the connection. Everything from the maps and the bodies point to someone snagging them off the apps and he lives near there. All three men lived within walking distance of the drop-off points.”
“What about — ”
There was a shift in the shadows near Janie. Anger and jealousy bled into them. Evil—my food—seeped into my tethers. My fist gripped the glass I was holding until it snapped. My growl filled the room, and Urien looked up.
“What’s wrong?”
“Someone is near Janie,” I whispered.
“Is it . . .”
“Yes,” I hissed as I sunk into the shadows. I didn’t step out as I stood in the shadow as I watched the man throw her into his SUV. As he walked around the SUV, he looked familiar. A shadow licked at his heel and I tried to steal a memory. A little boy being shoved under the slide as a kid. Sometimes the seed of evil started early, and it was the brother of the man from last night. It was never the dates. A flurry of emotions crisscrossed in complicated patterns of greed, jealousy, lust, and a fight for power. It would be easy to find Janie. As the van drove away, her beacon of light shined brightly and my shadows licked her heels. She was passed out now.It was time to grab Urien and save her.
Slipping back into the shadow stream, I stepped back into Janie’s apartment. “I found her . . . and him.”
“What do you mean?” he asked as he stood up.
“He took her.”
“You let him?” Urien shouted.
“We might find Tana. I tasted anticipation. I don’t think he was thinking of Janie. Let’s go. Unless you want to go the old-fashioned way.”
Urien looked up and down at my body with a look of intrigue. “I guess I’ll let you suck my soul in. But no eating,” he said.
“Plan?”
“Kill the fucker? Can I have a drop of blood before you consume the rest?”
“Sounds like a deal,” I replied.
“Maybe we should be serial killer vigilantes.”
“My kind technically is.”
“Y’all do it less because of the hunters.”
A shadow wrapped around him and sucked him into the void. I stepped back into them until I popped us in front of the place she was being held. It was an older house, but our research showed that most of this area was older builds. Urien teetered on his feet.
“That’s a shitty way to travel.”
“Feels fine to me.”
Urien rolled his eyes before he turned back to me. “Plan?”
“Save the day. You take the back, I take the shadows near her. I’ll let you take a bite of him,” I replied.
Urien and I stepped closer to the house. His eyes shifted to red, and his nostrils flared. “There’s blood. A lot of it is in the basement. I think. Some old. Some new. This has to be it.”
“Move fast,” I hissed. Urien ran around to the back and I slipped into the shadows to enter the house. The door slammed against the floor with a bang as he ran inside. Standing from the shadows, I watched the man truss up her co-worker upside down as she struggled against her bonds. My shadows lapped at her fear. There were some things I couldn’t control in situations like this. His greed and lust filled the air as her body rose higher on the hook. Janie was on the other side, fighting against her ropes. The man stopped and Tana fell to the ground in a lump. She groaned against the gag.
“Who’s there?” he said toward the basement door. My shadows reached out and unraveled Tana’s restraints.
Urien’s figure stood in the doorway, glowing from the light of the kitchen. “I was hungry and grabbed a snack,” he hissed. The normally happy-go-lucky Urien was gone; only the killer remained.
“How’d you get in my house?” the killer screamed as he turned to the table with the bloodied implements. While he ran up the stairs toward Urien, the shadows untied Janie. Tana was almost complete. With Urien’s vampire speed, he blocked the man’s knife attack before sinking his teeth into his throat. It wasn’t pretty. Blood poured everywhere, and I was sure he’d bitch later about the blood on his clothes. Janie lunged toward Tana and grabbed her as the last shadow untied her. Tana was covered in old and fresh wounds and I saw the start of bruises and cuts on Janie. Rage poured through me. This evil will be eliminated. I let them fall through the void back into her apartment as my tentacles wrapped around his ankles. Urien stepped back, and the killer was barely standing and conscious. My shadow flipped him to face me.
“You are guilty.”
Barely holding onto life, the sick fuck argued with me. “Of what, asshole?”
“Do you want me to list your crimes or do you want your punishment?” I hissed.
He tried to spit, but the spittle fell on his chin. “Fuck you, man.”
The shadows constricted and twined around his legs faster and faster. It was then when he realized he was immobile as I fed on every disgusting thought and action that he had ever done. Thought crimes? Maybe. He had committed heinous crimes against women. Evidently, after his brother had a heartbreak a few years ago, he eliminated every woman he dated. Why him? To eventually pin the crimes on his fumbling brother. Sicko . The shadows consumed his head, and it was complete. His evil run was over. No woman would have to worry about being kidnapped and killed again. He was about to hang Tana up and bleed her dry like a dead deer.
I sighed and fell into my void into Janie’s apartment.
Janie’s calming voice filled the apartment as I reformed and I made sure that I was in a human form.
“Janie, what happened?” Tana whispered.
“We saved you.”
“How’d we get into your apartment?”
Janie looked at me. “She needs help and care. How do we do that?”
I frowned. “I’ll have to call a witch to help. There are magic-based doctors we can use. I told you about them. They will fix her. They know what to do when humans touch the paranormal.”
“Can you call them? Now?!” she exclaimed.
“Yeah,” I said as I turned around to find the phone.