Burning Darkness Read online

  She went to work unwrapping a couple of cups, scooping ice into them, and then opening the bottle of tequila.

  He moved up behind her, covering her shoulders with his hands and kneading them. They were rock hard. “We don’t have to drink.”

  She met his gaze in the mirror. “Yes. I do. We do.”

  Okay, she had issues. She wasn’t drunk, despite the tequila on her tongue. So something was haunting her, and she needed a drink to loosen up so she could exorcise it by having sex with a stranger. He checked her ring finger. She wore lots of rings but nothing that looked like a wedding ring, nor a telltale white band.

  He pushed her long hair away from her neck and leaned down to kiss her soft skin, but she shifted away.

  “Can you turn the air conditioner down?”

  She was acting strange, but if she was telling the truth about this being her first one-night stand, that might explain it. Oddly enough, he felt a bit weird, too. Probably picking up her energy. He walked over and futzed with the controls, one of which was missing a knob.

  She walked over with the drinks when he was done, handed him one, and raised hers. “Cheers.”

  “Cheers.” They tapped cups, and he took a drink. He wasn’t a tequila drinker, or really much of a liquor drinker in general. When you had a tendency to set fires with your mind, losing control was a bad idea.

  She sat down on the bed, tucking one foot under her thigh. “When we finish these, we can . . .” She gave him that shy smile again. “Well, you know.”

  He quelled the urge to say Bottoms up! But he did drink.

  She cat-walked across the bed to her small purse and pulled out a condom. Her ass swayed with her movements and her skirt rode up the backs of her thighs. She moved with a feline grace, but she also had a nervousness that kept her moving.

  The liquor was relaxing him, that was for sure. It stole over him like a mist. She twisted around and smiled. Beautiful smile. He smiled back, though his lips felt rubbery.

  She crawled toward him and looked in his cup. “Finish up.”

  “I don’t want—”

  She pushed the cup toward his mouth. “I want you to feel nice and loose.”

  “I already do.”

  “More loose.” She reached down where she’d set her cup and finished hers in one gulp.

  Okay, finish it up, get laid. She tossed her cup on the floor and came up behind him. Her fingers kneaded his shoulders as he’d tried to do to her a few minutes ago. He melted beneath her touch. The room even shifted, as though he were on a ship in rolling waves. His head lolled but he caught it. He was way too relaxed.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, her mouth near his ear, her breath warm against his neck.

  Only garbled sounds came out. His mouth wouldn’t work. What the hell?

  She pulled him down and leaned over him. “Are you all right?”

  He tried to lift his hand. To speak. To think. I’ve . . . Too . . . His thoughts kept scrambling. No, not right . . . not all right.

  “Can you scoot up on the bed?” she asked.

  She tugged on his arms, and he sloppily moved with her. His arms were like overripe celery. He felt as though he were sinking into the mattress. She leaned closer, her face warped. She looked strange in the near-darkness. Her eyes were as sharp as blades, her mouth in a tight line. And her hair . . . it wasn’t long anymore. It had a streak of a darker color. No, none of this made sense. Except now she looked like his succubus.

  “Eric?”

  He couldn’t focus anymore. Her mouth floated away from her face, her eyes wobbled. His eyes wanted to roll back but he fought to keep them facing forward. “Can’t . . .” More garbled nonsense.

  She moved away, and then he felt something tighten around his wrist. His arm finally moved, but not his intent. Then his other wrist. Arms over his head.

  The girl . . . what was her name again? She leaned close again. “Eric Aruda . . . welcome to the last day of your life.”

  Then he lost the battle and his eyes crashed shut.

  Fonda leaned down into Eric’s face. He was definitely out. She closed his eyelids as one does with the dead.

  Not yet.

  She’d gotten a couple of pills from her old neighborhood. She didn’t even know what kind of drug it was, didn’t want to, only how much to give him to knock him out.

  She took the ropes she’d brought and anchored his wrists to the cheap headboard. She wasn’t going to wait long. As soon as he started coming around, she would tell him why she was killing him. Maybe it didn’t matter once his soul left his body and went to hell. It mattered to her. She’d ditched the wig and changed clothes, black pants and a moss green shirt, black boots that looked more industrial than glamorous. She pulled a knife out of her bag. Long and sharp. She had planned and daydreamed about this, but now that she was here . . . killing someone was harder than she thought. Even for good reason. The blood would leave a terrible mess for that nice man at the check-in desk to deal with. It probably wouldn’t be as easy as it looked on television. She’d cut a man once, in self-defense, but that was all reaction and instinct.

  She put herself back in the moment when the fire had broken out. Jerryl’s screams. Her agony and the guilt she carried that she couldn’t help him. Her anger shored up her determination. You can do this.

  She unbuttoned Eric’s shirt and traced the space between the ribs on his left side. Stabbing his chest wouldn’t be as gory as cutting his throat. Either way, the flashbacks would haunt her just as the fire did.

  She straddled him, feeling his hip bones beneath her thighs. He was as beautiful in person as he’d been during her astral visit. That didn’t change anything. He was still a killer. And soon she would be, too.

  Chapter 4

  What the friggin’ hell?

  Eric’s muddled mind put those words together first, and it took everything in him to do that. He could hardly open his eyes. His instincts, though, were on alert. Danger vibrated through his being, but this was a different danger than he’d ever felt.

  Stay calm. Don’t move. Think. He fumbled with putting together his most recent memories. Bar. Hot chick. Went back to her motel room. About to have sex. How did he go from there to flat out on his back with his thoughts tumbling as though they were in a dryer?

  Listen.

  No sound.

  His arms ached, and he realized they were above his head. He gave them a tug. Panic sliced through him, springing his eyes open. He looked up, finding his hands tied to the bedposts. Still in the motel room. Where was the hot chick? Light crept around the edge of the bathroom door. Someone turned on the water in the sink.

  The heaviness in his brain and body . . . Hell, she’d drugged him. Hadn’t he seen her pour the drinks? No, she’d had him adjust the air conditioner, distracted him.

  Damn, hadn’t he known the pickup was too easy? Crap. He’d picked up some homicidal bitch. Or at best, a thief. But he could feel his wallet in his back pocket, so back to the homicidal option. He pulled on the ties, his eyes on the door.

  The water stopped.

  His metabolism was always fast for running alcohol through him. Thank God that seemed to be the case for drugs, too. The right rope snapped. Then the left.

  The toilet flushed.

  He bounded off the bed and toward the door just as it opened. She walked through, her long blond hair now short. Different clothing. Same girl.

  She stiffened at the sight of the empty bed, and he grabbed her. He saw the flash of a blade as she tried to bring her hand up. He twisted her arm. She gasped in pain, and the knife fell with a thud to the floor. He pushed her toward the bed, falling so he landed on top of her with all of his weight. Her breath left in a gasp. He smashed his hand over her mouth, crushing her into the bed. Her eyes, huge in her face, were already tear-streaked, the thick black liner smudged.

  His teeth were gritted, jaw tight. “Who the hell are you, what the hell did you give me, and why the hell are you trying to kill
me?”

  He lifted his hand enough for her to answer, ready to slam it down if she screamed.

  “You killed him!”

  Those words threw him. “Killed who?”

  Hatred permeated her hoarse voice and darkened her brown eyes. “You burned him, you son of a bitch. You burned him!”

  The pieces clicked into place. “You’re Fonda.” He tried to remember what he knew of her. She was one of the enemy Offspring, Jerryl’s lover. Small but fierce was how someone had described her. As she struggled beneath him, he agreed. But not fierce enough to budge him.

  She gave up the struggle, aiming her anger at him instead. “I want you dead!”

  Then another piece clicked in. “You can astral project. I wasn’t hallucinating.” He laughed in relief, but his humor was short-lived. “So you were going to seduce me, drug me, and stab me?”

  The word “Yes” came out on a whisper, no shred of remorse. “I wanted to bash your head in right there in your room. I couldn’t.” The weight of those last words sounded as though they crushed her as much as his weight on top of her.

  “So your plan to kill me was out of revenge? For Jerryl. Not anything someone ordered you to do.”

  “For everything you destroyed. The program. Jerryl. Me.”

  “It was a war, don’t you understand that? People die in war.”

  She took a breath. “Then you’ll understand why I have to kill you.”

  Their bodies were hot against each other. Was he crazy that her venom and emotions were actually a turn on? They sparked something primal in him. It wasn’t helping that they were sealed together from leg to chest.

  “The war is over.” He leaned closer to her, the heat enveloping his face. “Let it go.”

  Her mouth tightened to a hard line. “There’s where you’re wrong, Eric Aruda. It’s not over until you’re dead. I couldn’t live with myself knowing you were still out there alive, knowing I didn’t do what I needed to do. You’re a cold-blooded killer. It’s what you deserve.”

  She meant that, too. Maybe she was right.

  “So you’re still going to try to kill me?”

  Pain burned in her eyes. “Hell, yes. You’ll think I’m a dream, but someday I’m going to perfect my skills.” He saw the hunger in her eyes that he’d felt when he talked about killing Jerryl.

  Just what he needed, a homicidal female after him this time. Did she know what skill she might have inherited from her mother? No, she’d be using it now. If she learned, she’d be deadlier.

  He sighed. “You’re going to make me kill you, aren’t you?”

  “Do it,” she dared. “Why stop now? You probably enjoy it.”

  She was taunting him. Those words stung, though, because he had enjoyed torching his enemy. The allure of the flames, the power . . . He was pissed enough to kill her, just on principle. What he couldn’t figure out was why she didn’t pretend she would accept a truce. Was she crazy? Suicidal?

  He looked down at her face, in a mask of hatred, her small wrists pinned to the bed beside her head. Shame now flickered inside him at those lustful feelings.

  “I didn’t enjoy killing Jerryl. It was kill or be killed.”

  “Stop. You don’t get to talk about him. And you sure as hell aren’t going to convince me that you were doing the right thing by killing him.”

  No, he wasn’t. “Look, little girl, I don’t want to kill you.”

  If he killed her, then Sayre would be the only threat. Part of him craved the adrenaline rush of being hunted, but a bigger part just wanted peace and quiet for a while. He wasn’t going to get that as long as Fonda lived. He could swear she wanted him to kill her. There was a reckless part of her that plugged right into that same part of him.

  No way was he going there again. He flattened his palms over hers. “I could let you go. We could let this go, get on with our lives. It sucked, what happened to all of us. But Darkwell’s dead—”

  “Because you killed him.”

  “I wish I had. That man was evil.”

  “You’re evil.”

  He closed his eyes on that word for a second. “I’m not evil. Aren’t I proving that by offering to let you go? But you have to promise you’ll forget this revenge plan.”

  “I won’t promise you anything.”

  He wasn’t going to change her mind. Damn. He wasn’t evil. The flashbacks pulsed through his mind, not paranormal like Lucas’s storm of images, but nearly as painful. The things he’d done . . .

  Now he was going to have to kill this beautiful girl to stay alive. Even with a good reason, it still didn’t feel good.

  He unconsciously lifted his weight off her, and she took advantage and kneed him in the balls. Bitch! Pain shot through him, twisting his stomach into nauseous knots. He reflexively curled up. She dodged to the left and dropped down to grab the knife that was on the threadbare carpeting. She came at him, sharp point slashing down. He grabbed her wrist and slammed her against the wall, sending a picture to the floor. She kicked at him again, and he had to slam his body against hers to stop her. He wrestled the knife out of her hand and held it to her throat. His breaths sawed in and out, blood pulsing so hard it pounded in his ears.

  Just do it! Kill her.

  He pressed harder, and a drop of blood dripped down her throat. He didn’t see fear in her eyes. Only a resoluteness, with her chin tipped up, eyes narrowed at him. If looks could kill, he’d be writhing on the floor.

  His hand started shaking with the effort . . . the effort not to do it. His body was in full survival mode. Kill, kill, kill. So why couldn’t he finish her?

  He remained there for several seconds, their gazes locked. “I’m not going to kill you.” Because he couldn’t. It stunned him. Scared him. He couldn’t do what needed to be done.

  She sneered. “Now you become a coward?”

  He shook his head. “That shit doesn’t work. Ask my best friend who tried to get me to kill him.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. Think about whether you really want a war with me. Because I don’t want one with you. I’m done with war.” Fatigue seeped through him at the thought of it.

  A scrape of shoe on concrete made them both swivel their heads toward the front window. He remote-viewed, and what he saw made him eat his last words: a man approaching the window, his hand on a gun tucked into his waistband.

  He whispered, “You have company? There’s a guy with a gun outside our room.”

  “Maybe someone heard us and called the police.”

  “Not likely.”

  He remote-viewed again, seeing the man sticking a long pin into the door lock.

  Her eyes had closed, but they snapped open. “I know him! He’s an FBI agent. He asked me about Darkwell’s program. Why is he here?”

  Frustration and fear gripped him in a cold tight hold. “Hell. Someone else wants me dead.” He turned to her. “And if he’s not your buddy, he wants you dead, too.”

  “Why?” Her voice was strained, eyes wide. “Why would he want to kill me?”

  “Because you’re an Offspring.” No time for more of an explanation. Have to get out of here. Save yourself. She’s on her own.

  But even as he thought it, he grabbed her hand and pulled her next to the door as they heard a click. He gripped the knife in his other hand. The door opened, and he lunged. The man, taken off-guard, fell backward. The blade slashed down his chest. That’s all Eric had time to notice. They took off toward his car, he patting his pocket for the keys. His other hand was clamped over hers, though with her shorter legs, she couldn’t run as fast as he. The two working lights made puddles of piss-yellow glows in the narrow parking lot. They reached the car, swinging around to see if the agent was on their trail.

  Eric saw him press his hand over the cut in his chest and look to see if anyone was around. One of the rooms was occupied, and even at this late hour a glow emanated from behind the curtains.

  Fonda whispered, “Should we call for help?”
r />   “Not if this guy has government ID on him. Get in the car,” Eric said, shoving her in through the driver’s door and following her in.

  The agent reached out and pointed, and a small explosion tilted the car. They both flung themselves down in reaction. No glass had shattered.

  “He blew the tire out,” Eric told her, peering above the edge of the window. “But . . . he wasn’t pointing with the gun. Come on.”

  They scrambled out on the opposite side of the car. Eric saw him standing several yards away, an odd smile on his face. This was one person he didn’t mind torching. He narrowed his eyes and concentrated.

  Nothing. He tried harder. Fear pulsed through him. Have I lost my abilities? No, not now! Blowtorch that son of a bitch!

  Anger heated his face but didn’t produce one tiny flame.

  The man’s smile grew. Then he held out his hand like he was gesturing for Eric to stop. One second Eric was facing him, wanting to smash his face. The next, his body was flying backward as though an invisible wrecking ball had slammed into him. He landed on the asphalt, banging his head with a jarring thud. For a moment the night sky spun, stars dancing, his stomach churning.

  No time for lying down. He sprang to his feet, holding onto a car’s front fender for balance and facing an enemy who was quickly gaining the upper hand. Hell, who is this guy? What is he?

  “Are we having fun yet?” Westerfield taunted. “Well, I am, anyway.” He turned to Fonda, who was standing a few yards from Eric. He curled his hand into a fist and thrust it toward her.

  With a gasp, she clutched the sides of her head and crumpled to her knees. “My head . . . it feels like his hand is inside, cr-crushing my brain.”

  Eric ran over and pulled her up by the arm, but never took his eyes off the agent. “What the hell?”

  Westerfield took a step closer.

  Fonda stumbled, grimacing in pain. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her body contorted in on itself. “He’s . . . doing it, isn’t . . . he?”

  “Yeah, I think he is.” Unknown enemy. Unknown power. Unknown motive. Not good. He knelt beside her. “Listen to me. You have to get him out of your head . . . your body. Someone gave me good advice once. Don’t fight it. Imagine steel doors slamming shut, and this son of a bitch getting thrown back.”