Chapter 6
Chapter 6
O h. My. God. She closed her eyes as he kissed her. His kiss was sweet, tender, capturing her lips in a firm yet delicate kiss. She sighed against his mouth, and then his other hand rose until both of his hands cupped her cheeks, and he deepened the kiss.
Warmth, slow and seductive, curled inside her. She could taste him. Coffee and male, a sweet and savory concoction that had her tilting her head back, wanting more. He smelled magnificent, all woodsy—sage, juniper and neroli. His lips were soft, yet firm. Supple. His mouth moved over hers, dancing almost, with a grace and skill that stole her breath along with her caution.
He slowly raised his head, and he was so close she could see his eyes behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. It was too dark to see any detail, but his gaze swept across her face, and then he stepped back.
“Uh, I’d best be going,” he rasped, jerking his thumb in the direction of the door.
She nodded. She would have said something—anything, only her brain forgot to kick-start again from the sensory overload.
He backed toward the door. “I’ll keep in touch,” he said, his voice husky.
She nodded. Yep. She would have said it, too, but she got only as far as opening her mouth.
He walked back through her workroom, then paused at the door that led to her shop floor. He gestured beyond to the front door, his brow dipping. “You should beef up your security,” he told her. “Maybe a perimeter spell.”
She blinked. Uh, maybe...? Only it wouldn’t be much use. Nulls. She half nodded, then shook her head as he departed. What?
She heard a motorbike start up outside, then sagged against her kitchen bench as she heard it roar away. She lifted her right hand and gently pressed her fingers against her lips.
The Witch Hunter had kissed her.
He’d kissed her.
Dave shifted on his bike as he rode through town. He was sitting just a mite uncomfortably. What the hell had possessed him to kiss her?
Well, she was attractive, in a fresh, girl-next-door kind of way. Sexy girl-next-door, though. And she was sweet. Too sweet for her own good, really. He shook his head. Tea. She’d given him a calmative tea because she’d sensed his turmoil at what he’d done to her. Who does that?
She was such a fascinating mix, though. Back on the beach, she’d given as good as she’d got. She’d matched him with her powers, and had fought him with a skilled strength that was impressive. And she was armed. He’d seen her belt. She seemed so sweet, so trusting, yet she carried twin blades, and had made him concerned for his ability to bear children. Sweet, but spicy. A contradiction of lethal innocence.
And he’d granted her a favor. He never granted favors. He was the collector of debts, and had a bank of favors owed to him from a number of members of Reform society, from vampire or werewolf primes—to light warriors. And he’d granted this witch a debt.
Maybe it was because every time he touched her, he lost time, lost awareness of everything save her. The scent of her, all floral and summery, her warmth, her gentleness—when she wasn’t trying to unman him—her...care. She’d minimized his effect on her, because she could see, feel, sense—however it worked with an empath—the effect of his job on him, and sympathized, putting his needs above her own.
That humbled him. He sensed her shields, though. They were impressive, almost tangible blocks to getting to know the woman inside—and he really wanted to get to know that woman. He could usually get a sense of people when he touched them...good, bad, past, present and future—he saw some of each. He was selective with his clients for that very reason. He didn’t ink up anyone with one of his spells unless they deserved it, or desperately needed it, needed his special brand of protection. Sully, though, well she consumed his senses at a touch, but those messages, those visions he normally received about a person were missing with her. The protective walls she’d erected within herself were stunningly effective, and it made him wonder why she felt the need to close herself off so thoroughly from those around her. It had to be exhausting, maintaining those protections.
He glanced about the town square as he rode around it. The diner still hadn’t opened, but there was a cluster of people at the bottom of the steps. Even when the place wasn’t open, it seemed to be the hub for the town people to gather and gossip. He recognized the waitress, Cheryl, who lifted her hand at him as he rode by. He gave her a brief salute in return, then turned at the end of the block. There was a bar at the far end of the marina, he’d discovered. He glanced at the docks. Most of the boats were out. He’d learned Serenity Cove wasn’t so much a vacation spot for cruisers, but a working fishing port. The salt and brine was distinctive, and he drove around the weighing station and the fishermen’s co-op, to the small parking lot of the bar at the end.
He parked his bike and set his helmet on the dash, uttering his security spell as he did so. That was one more thing he didn’t understand about Sully. Her store was poorly secured. One flimsy lock on the front door that a teenager with a penknife could pass. When he’d visited her home, he hadn’t sensed any blocks or shields there, either. As though she couldn’t be bothered. He didn’t know a witch who didn’t layer their security with any number of spells. Some were innocuous, some had painful elements invoked for trespassers. Personally, he preferred the painful variety. He didn’t have any patience for those who tried to steal or damage his property.
He walked into the bar, pausing when he stepped into the dim interior. At this time of day a couple of patrons sat in a booth, a couple more at the bar. A game of college baseball was playing on the television above the bar, and the thickset, middle-aged bartender leaned his palm on the bar, watching it.
Dave walked up to the bar and sat on a stool two down from another patron. The bartender looked over at him, an eyebrow raised in query.
“Beer, please,” Dave said.
The bartender lumbered over to the under-the-counter fridge and pulled out the first beer his hand grasped. He grabbed a bottle opener from the counter, then slapped a coaster down and thunked the beer onto it.
“Thanks,” Dave muttered.
“Well, if it isn’t Sully’s friend,” a tired voice muttered from the stool two down from his.
Dave turned, then frowned at the familiar man until he recognized him. The sheriff, out of uniform. No wonder he hadn’t recognized him immediately. It was like seeing your elementary school principal sitting at your dinner table. Out of place and damn uncomfortable.
“Tyler, right?” That was what Cheryl, the waitress, had called him, wasn’t it? He purposely didn’t address him by his title. The man was out of uniform, and Dave hoped this was an opportunity to get the man to open up about the murders he’d seen.
He gestured to the sheriff’s nearly empty bottle. “Another one for my friend,” he told the bartender.
Tyler’s eyebrows rose, but Dave noticed he didn’t decline the beer.
“How’d it go with Sully?” Tyler asked idly, although Dave suspected the man wasn’t as nonchalant as he appeared to be.
The bartender clunked the new bottle down on the bar. “You know Sully?” he asked, and Dave almost saw curiosity flare, but then the crowd roared on the TV, and he turned his attention back to the game.
“Didn’t quite go the way I expected,” Dave admitted to the sheriff.
“Oh? No more spark?”
“Oh, there were plenty of sparks,” Dave said, thinking of their power struggle on the beach. “I had this meeting all thought out in my head, and it didn’t go at all to plan.”
Tyler chuckled. “Hell, been there. But you’re still here?” His expression was friendly, but Dave could see the interest in his eyes at figuring out the new stranger in town.
Dave nodded. “Yeah. I thought I’d stay a couple of days. Hey, what’s with the diner? I went for breakfast, but it’s closed, even though the sign says it’s usually open today.”
Tyler moved his now-empty bottle aside and reached for the new one. “Yeah, well, Lucy, the owner, isn’t well.”
Dave’s eyes narrowed. He sensed there was more to that than the sheriff was letting on. The game on the TV hit a lull, with the teams changing over, and a news broadcast filled the ad break. Dave watched as the announcer read about the murder of a local woman. His arms muscles tightened when he saw a photo of the deceased woman. It was the elderly woman from his vision.
The bartender sighed, then looked at the sheriff. “Mary Anne? What sick bastard would go after an elderly woman in her home?”
Tyler nodded, his gaze flitting to the screen momentarily before dropping back down to the bottle of beer he held. “Well, Tony, you got the sick bastard part right.”
Dave frowned. “Isn’t that the second murder in the area in what, a week?”
Tony, the bartender, nodded. “Yeah. First one was her son.” He shook his head. “Seems like the family pissed off someone.”
“So, the murders are related?” Dave asked casually.
Tyler tilted his head to stare at him for a moment. “Yeah, looks that way.” He lifted his beer to his lips and drained the bottle, then stood. “Thanks for the beer.”
Dave realized the sheriff was shutting down any further conversation on the topic. He smiled, masking his frustration. He knew the law weren’t supposed to talk about open cases, but he’d hoped he could make the sheriff crack.
“Good luck with your investigation,” he said.
Tyler hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. “We’re going to get this sick bastard,” he said quietly, his gaze meeting Dave’s. Dave’s eyes narrowed. Was that—was the sheriff warning him?
Tyler pulled at the door and disappeared into the daylight.
Dave turned back to the bar, his attention now on the bartender. “So, mother and son, huh?”
Tony tore his gaze away from the game that had now resumed on the TV. His gaze flitted to the door, then around the bar, and then he nodded, folding his arms on the bar.
“Yeah. Pretty sad. Gary was a great guy. Didn’t come in here all that often, wasn’t much of a drinker, but he was the kind of guy who’d always stop and say hi, or give you a hand if you needed one. He and Lucy were going to be married in June.”
Dave winced. That woman was going to need some time to heal. He added her name to the list of folks affected by this witch’s actions. “And the mom?”
Tony grimaced. “Well, I didn’t have too much to deal with her. She was a great crocheter, though. She’d make beanies for all the newborns at the hospital. My sister got one when her daughter was born. Meant a lot, to her, that kindness from a woman she barely knew.”
Dave frowned. “It doesn’t sound like they were the kind of people to have any enemies.”
Tony snorted as he straightened from the bar. “Nulls always have enemies.”
Dave’s eyebrows rose. “They were nulls?”
Tony looked at him, surprised. “Well, yeah. They’re all over the north end. That’s why we’re so into fishing, here. Tourism blows.”
“Huh.” Dave drained his beer, than pulled some cash out of his wallet, placing it on the bar. “Thanks.”
Tony nodded, picking up the cash and strolling over to the cashier. “Anytime.”
Dave strolled to the door, then hesitated. “Say, do you know a Sullivan Timmerman?”
Tony frowned. “Sully? Sure. Everyone knows Sully. Sweet lady.”
“Uh, no, I mean another Sullivan Timmerman,” Dave clarified.
Tony shook his head. “Nope. That would be weird.”
Dave nodded. “Yeah, I guess it would be.”
He left the bar, and straddled his bike. He frowned as he gazed out at the tiny harbor. Nulls. Why the hell would a witch want to kill nulls ? The very nature of a null meant that the witch’s powers were nullified in their presence. No werewolf could shift in their presence, no vampire could get their fangs on, no witches could cast spells...
He kick-started his bike and eased open the throttle as he rode out of the parking lot. Maybe it had nothing to do with nulls, and everything to do with the victims?
He needed to find out more about Gary and Mary Anne Adler.
Sully stood next to Jenny as the preacher gave his graveyard sermon. She glanced across the open grave to Lucy. The woman leaned heavily on Cheryl, her face streaked with tears and pale with exhaustion. Even from this distance, Sully could see the deep bruise on her chin and along her cheek. Cheryl had told her the previous day that Lucy had been attacked from behind and had fallen heavily on the wooden floor. She hadn’t seen her attacker, hadn’t witnessed Mary Anne’s murder, but had found the older woman’s body when she’d regained consciousness.
Sully returned her gaze to the open grave, Gary Adler’s coffin poised above it. His mother would be interred at the end of the week, as her body was still at the county coroner’s, her autopsy only just recently completed.
“This is so sad,” Jenny whispered. “A family wiped out.”
Sully nodded. It was beyond sad, really. “It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
Jenny shrugged. “Depends which side of the fence you’re sitting on. Some of the older folk remember the Reformation, and what happened with us. They say it’s happening again.”
Sully flicked a glance at her friend. “Seriously?”
Jenny nodded, just once.
Sully frowned as she watched Gary’s coffin lowered into the grave. The late afternoon was fiercely hot, and bottles of water had been handed out among the small crowd. The funeral directors had erected a tent, and Sully wasn’t sure whether it was better to stay under the tent and out of the sun, or to get some distance from all the hot, sweaty bodies and brave the furnace beyond the shade. And of course, everyone wore black.
She glanced at Jenny. Her friend had a point. Nulls had experienced a varied history. On the one hand they were reviled by the shadow breeds. Any shifter or vampire, or even witch, was reduced to being powerless and vulnerable in the presence of a null, which meant ordinary humans had seen the benefit in protecting them, and using them as a barrier against the breeds. They lived in the gray area between natural and supernatural. Not quite a shadow breed, but not an ordinary human, either. As a result, they were hunted by the shadow breeds in well-planned, ruthless skirmishes. During Reformation, they were given no territory, being classed as a subcategory of the human race. As such, they were often not treated as equal to any other race, shadow breed or not. Some of the crimes that had been committed against them were horrific, but with the recognition of a new hybrid breed just outside Irondell, there was renewed action to also recognize nulls as a race of their own.
In the meantime, no shadow breed would willingly go near a null community. That meant a lot of trade and tourism was restricted in the null-saturated areas. Humans walked the fine edge of losing business among the shadow breeds, and having protection from being prey to the breeds if nulls were about. To hear that the murder of two nulls—the first murders in the area since Sully had moved there—was possibly race-based was...disheartening.
Sully had gotten to know many of the nulls. They’d initially viewed her with mistrust. Why would she want to associate with them? She’d learned that apart from the block on her powers, there was something familiar about the nulls. They loved family. They had a tight-knit community, where each looked out for the other. They worked hard and partied harder, but they were just like any other human community—or witch, vampire or shifter, with one major difference. They just didn’t get into power plays.
And that was probably one of the most attractive qualities, in her mind.
“Tyler will find whoever did this,” she whispered to Jenny.
Jenny turned to her, her eyebrow raised. “We’re not going to wait for the humans to help.”
Her friend turned to walk over to Lucy, and Sully caught up with her. “What do you mean?” Sully whispered.
“Tyler’s a good guy,” Jenny whispered back, “but these crimes have targeted nulls. We have our own ways of dealing with this.”
“Really?” Sully glanced around the mourners.
Jenny smiled. “I keep forgetting you’re not a born null.”
“Thanks.” Sully frowned. “I think.”
Jenny halted, scanning over Sully’s shoulder. “Oh, hey, I see my brother. You go ahead, I need to go see him. Gary was one of his close friends.”
Sully nodded. Lucy crossed over to the group of nulls that had stepped away from the grave to have a quiet talk. She turned back to approach Lucy, and it was as she was stepping up to hug her that she felt the little scratching at her shields. She was out of null range. But no, she should be able to manage.
She smiled sadly at Lucy and held out her arms.
Lucy stepped into them, sobbing softly, and Sully held her. She smiled briefly at Cheryl over Lucy’s shoulder. The waitress looked almost as miserable as Lucy.
“I’m so sorry,” Sully whispered into the crying woman’s ear.
“Thank you for being here,” Lucy said softly, hiccupping into her shoulder. “I’m so sorry about the cutl—”
“Shh,” Sully hushed her. “There’s nothing to apologize for. This is more important.”
Lucy squeezed her tight, and Sully could feel the woman trembling in her arms. She could sense the grief, the heartrending sorrow in her. It was muted, like an annoying pain knocking at her shields. Sully hesitated, then heard Lucy sob anew. She couldn’t leave her like this. Nobody should have to go through this heartfelt agony. Lucy had lost two members of her family in quick succession in the most violent way. Sully could feel the woman fracturing in her arms. Her trembling increased, her breath grew ragged as her sobs grew harsher. Sully closed her eyes, then opened her shields a crack. She sucked in the pain, trying to absorb only some of Lucy’s pain, but she could feel the grief of the fellow mourners clawing at her shields, peeling them back. She fought, trying to shed the talons that were shredding her walls. She slammed a barrier down, and Lucy’s head lifted, surprise on her face. The woman hiccupped, then patted Sully on the shoulder as she turned to the next person lining up to offer their condolences, her composure once more slipping into place as she brushed away her tears.
Sully stepped back, and would have staggered if Jenny hadn’t caught her arm. Her friend eyed her curiously. “Are you okay, Sully?”
Sully nodded, smiling tightly as the pain screamed inside her head like a banshee with her finger in an electrical socket. The nulls could stop her using her powers, but once she absorbed pain, they couldn’t stop her from feeling what was already inside. And with them around, she couldn’t dispel it.
Oh, God, so much pain . It was unbearable. Sully could feel it eating at her mental walls, coursing through her brain like a hot wash of acid. Even now, her vision was beginning to darken at the edges. She had to dispel the energy, but had to get away from the nulls to do it—and you never did a discharge of this magnitude where other humans might pick up some of the spill.
“I have to go,” she rasped to her friend, and started to walk between the gravestones toward the parking lot. She had to get out of here. She was going to lose it. Even now, bile rose within her, burning her throat. She swallowed, trying to contain everything.
“Oh, hey, there’s your boyfriend,” Cheryl said.
It took Sully a moment to realize Cheryl was talking to her. She tightened her lips as she glanced about. Boyfriend? What? Sully saw Dave in the shaded corner of the parking lot, leaning against his bike.
He frowned, straightening from his bike as she hurried toward her car.
“Sully.”
She braced her hand against the car, bending over as her stomach muscles clamped as though a vise was trying to squeeze her gut in half. Her hands shook as she delved into her satchel and finally found her keys. They jangled in her hand like a wind chime in a tornado.
Two hands clasped hers, removing the keys from her grasp, and then she felt a strong arm guiding her into the passenger seat.
“I’ll drive.”