Darkness Hunts(62)

But you usually can sense it, so why not here? I walked to the other bedroom door and opened it. A fully clothed man lay stretched out on the queen-sized bed, his hands—resting on his chest—rising and falling with each breath.

If this is telepathic interference, it is only very minor, and that is often hard to catch or define.

Meaning what? That someone has simply forced them to sleep? Why in the hell would anyone want that?

He didn’t answer, but I really wasn’t expecting him to. I walked over to the bed and lightly touched the man’s shoulder. He didn’t react in any way.

I pinched his cheek. Nothing. I pinched harder, but the result was the same. This definitely wasn’t a natural sleep. “You seeing this, Rhoan?”

“Yeah. And I’m liking it a whole lot less. Check the third person.”

I spun and headed down to the kitchen. It was less tidy than Vonda’s, with baby bottles in various states of cleanliness scattered over the sink and a half-made sandwich sitting on the counter.

I kept walking into the living room. The woman was still standing at the side window, but as I entered, she slowly turned to face me.

Shock hit like a hammer, and I stopped.

Burned into the woman’s forehead was a raw and bleeding K-shaped mark.

It was the exact same mark that had been burned into Dorothy Hendricks’s forehead just before she’d died.





Chapter 9




My fingers twitched with the need to feel Amaya in my hands, but my sword was, for once, quiet. Whatever was happening here, she didn’t sense an immediate threat.

I forced a smile, then walked toward the woman and held out a hand. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, but I’m looking for Vonda Belmore. I don’t suppose you know where she is, do you?”

The woman didn’t shake my hand—she didn’t even look at it. Nor did she immediately respond to my question. She just stared at me in an oddly dead way.

I let my hand drop to my side and stopped just beyond her reach. But it was still close enough that I could smell the wound on her forehead, and it was rank. It was almost as if her flesh had rotted away rather than burned.

My gaze swept the rest of her. She was statuesque, with fine, almost regal features and silvery hair that was cut short but well styled. She was also a vampire, which, when combined with the wound on her forehead, meant this was more than likely Vonda. But I wasn’t about to admit that knowledge. Better to play the game, whatever the hell the game was.

“I do know Vonda,” the woman said eventually. Her voice was whispery and, like her gaze, lacked any sort of life or warmth. “She faces you.”

Vonda might be facing me, but she wasn’t the one forming the words.

He was doing that.

He was in her mind, controlling her. Maybe even seeing what she saw.

It was certainly one way for a blind man to check out his adversary.

Azriel, are you able to get into her thoughts? Can you catch anything about the man we hunt?

I am only able to read the minds of those who are in the same vicinity. She currently has no thoughts of her own, and while he may control her, he does so from a distance.

I guess I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, and barely resisted the urge to run from this freak show. Or at least run from the freak behind it. The only reason I didn’t was because it wouldn’t help—this was a game and, for whatever reason, it was one he wanted to play with me.

“And why are you here rather than in your own house, Vonda?”

“I knew you were clever. I just wanted to see how observant you were.”

“So I’ve passed the test?”

“Yes and no.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you found one, but you did not find the other.”

I stared at him—her—for a moment, my stomach churning as I remembered that Vonda didn’t live alone. “You’ve taken her sister?”

“You weren’t paying attention, huntress. Did I not say victims, plural, last time we spoke?”

Like I was supposed to understand the nuances of every word spoken by a crackpot? “Taking two women at once doesn’t follow your usual pattern, and I suspect you’re a man who likes his patterns and rules.”

“Indeed, I do. But I have never come across twins such as these before.”

“What is that supposed to mean? And what have any of these women done to you?”

“They are not what they pretend to be. They are Kudlak, and therefore must be destroyed. That is my destiny, huntress. It is my task by birthright.”

It was his birthright to hunt harmless women? Sanity and he really weren’t on speaking terms. “I have no idea what a Kudlak is, but I know these women are vampires—and harmless ones at that. You’re mistaken—”