Night Hunter

by Cathy McDavid

  The streets were bad enough. To venture down the cemetery's service road was just inviting a mugger or some other attack. But her greatest threat came from the creature.

  This was his hunting ground. Her condo, once the site of her childhood home; Nick's apartment; the TV station; the cemetery.-all were situated within the boundaries of the map in Gillian's book.

  Coincidence? She doubted it. Just as she doubted the connection she'd experienced with Nick was simple, spontaneous lust.

  Steeling her resolve, she advanced a step, then two. The service road loomed ahead, seeming to stretch endlessly. Would venturing down it lead her to danger or the answers she'd been seeking the last twenty-five years?

  Taking another step, she slid her hand into her purse, needing both the can of Mace and the small measure of comfort it would provide. Her fingers inadvertently brushed the digital camera she'd recently started carrying.

  If she wanted proof of the creature's existence, then, like Dorothy braving the Wicked Witch's castle to steal the broom, Gillian would have to put herself in jeopardy.

  Concentrating on her father, on how old and tired he'd looked during her last few visits, she increased her pace, her eyes constantly scanning for Nick ... or something else.

  Shadows, in shades of dark and darker, alternately grew and shrank as Gillian progressed. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Something swished on the ground beside her foot, and she momentarily freaked. The lizard or mouse or whatever it was scurried away, leaving Gillian with her knees knocking, and her chest on the verge of exploding. She felt downright foolish.

  If she were this afraid of a tiny animal, how would she react if she saw the creature?

  Nearby city noises-a siren wailing, tires squealing, people shouting, and rap music playing from an open window-reminded her that if something bad were to happen, help wasn't far away.

  Oh, God! Had she charged her cell phone last night? Gillian ripped it from the carrying case clipped to her belt. Three bars glowed brightly on the display, and her previously knocking knees wobbled with relief.

  Pulling herself together, she replaced her phone, removed her camera from her purse, and hung it around her neck. In the damp palm of her right hand she held her can of Mace. How much protection would it afford her if the creature were to suddenly swoop down and overtake her? Some, she hoped.

  Probably not as much as the Taser she'd purchased a few weeks ago. But she hadn't brought it with her tonight because she hadn't thought she'd need it.

  Gillian continued her journey, reminding herself that cowardliness wouldn't free her father from prison.

  Thirty feet. Forty feet. Fifty feet. Still no sign of Nick, and yet, he had to be close by. No one could vanish that completely.

  She remained tense and alert, though she became less fearful the longer she went without seeing the creature-and less optimistic she'd obtain her proof. Frustration at losing Nick turned to disappointment. He'd probably used the service road as a shortcut, not gone on a secret news assignment.

  This time, when her inner voice advocated going home, she listened. Tomorrow she'd contact Nick through more conventional means, if she were still inclined. Her little adventure tonight had stolen much of the wind from her sails.

  A narrow beam of light from inside the cemetery brought her up short. Unlike the stationary ones shining onto various monuments and headstones, it zigzagged.

  A flashlight?

  Gillian stared, blinked, and stared some more. The light remained, now moving in a circle. Grave robbers? Kids using the cemetery for illicit activities? A homeless person searching for a place to bed down for the night? The police investigating the old woman's murder?

  Nick doing his own investigation?

  The next instant, the light went out.

  Gillian decided not to stick around, and headed back the way she came, glad to be leaving the cemetery behind. She'd accomplished nothing tonight save scaring herself. No discussion with Nick. No encounter with the creature. Not even any research for her next book.

  Behind her, a bush rustled. Gillian's steps faltered, and she instinctively turned toward the disturbance. When, after several seconds, nothing more happened, she swung back around.

  And came face to face with a tall, dark figure.

  Gillian screamed and raised her arm.

  Before she could fire the Mace, the can was yanked from her hand and dropped to the ground.

  "Careful with that," a man's voice said. "You might hurt someone."

  Not pausing to think, she lifted her right leg and kicked her assailant in the shin. Hard.

  "Hey!" He didn't so much as flinch.

  She kicked him again with such strength her toes cracked.

  "Relax, Gillian. It's me."

  Me?

  The cloud of fear and confusion surrounding her brain began to dissipate.

  "Nick?" she asked, her voice pitifully weak. "Yeah. Are you all right?"

  Her? What about him? He should be hobbling around, holding his injured leg.

  He cupped her shoulders with his hands, the gesture more comforting than menacing. And impossibly familiar.

  "I'm fine." She resisted succumbing to the purely feminine reaction of leaning into him. "What are you-"

  "Later." Not giving her time to respond, Nick pulled her along with him back down the service road. "We need to leave now."

  Her toe throbbed, and she struggled to keep pace with him. "Slow down!"

  He paid her no heed. Only when they reached the street did he stop. By then, Gillian was huffing and puffing as if she'd run a marathon. Nick looked fresh as a daisy. She straightened her rumpled clothing.

  "You okay?" he asked, his hand still on her arm. She didn't attempt to remove herself from his grasp. "Yes."

  "It's not safe here." He peered over her head, back the way they came, and tensed, his fingers tightening ever so slightly.

  She eyed him curiously. Nick knew something about the old woman's murder, she was sure of it.

  Something he wasn't telling.

  "What were you doing in the cemetery?" "Checking out the murder scene." "Oh." So he had been on assignment.

  "What about you?" His tone held a trace of mirth.

  "Do you always take late-night walks in cemeteries?" "I'm ... ah . . ." She hesitated, the speech she'd mentally prepared on the drive to the station having fled her mind.

  Still holding her by the shoulders, he waited for her to answer. She should push him away, she thought, a frown tugging at her mouth. Establish a safety zone between them. Their contact, while not precisely intimate, disrupted her equilibrium and jammed her thought processes.

  "Gillian?" he prompted.

  She swallowed and blurted the truth. "I came look

  ing for you. I followed you here from your apartment." If her admission surprised him, he hid it well.

  "Why? "

  "I need your help."

  There. She'd said it. And the sky hadn't fallen.

  Gillian waited for his ridiculing laughter or uncomfortable withdrawal.

  All that came was a simple, "I see."

  When she would have pulled back, Nick lifted a

  hand to cradle the side of her head. He stroked her hair with the tenderness of a lover.

  Gillian went still, but more from his next words than his bone-melting caress.

  "You've always had my help. You just didn't know it."

  From high in the branches of a tall oak tree, Cadamus watched the Huntsman and his mate leave the place where humans buried their dead.

  "Fool," Cadamus growled but not with displeasure. His first encounter with his enemy had revealed much, all of it to his liking.

  The Huntsman was weak. Careless. Easily distracted and stupid. While he'd been examining the place of Cadamus's rebirth and the pieces of torn cocoon not carried away by dogs, Cadamus crouched among the foliage overhead. Not once had the Huntsman looked up or even cocked an ear.

  "This is the warrior the Ancients have chosen to f
ight me?"

  Cadamus's blood burned with a fury passed down from countless generations. It commanded him to attack and engage in battle before the Huntsman disappeared from sight. Through sheer force of will Cadamus resisted. Though he felt he could have easily overpowered the so-called human warrior, he couldn't risk it until he'd found a female. He, too, was distracted by the need to procreate. Instantly, Cadamus's loins began to ache.

  He'd fed earlier tonight. The young human, his mind in an altered state from smoking a narcotic plant, had been easy to kill. With one hunger sated, the other took precedence and drove Cadamus from his hiding place.

  Turning to face the breeze, he scented for a female. With his highly developed olfactory nerves, he could detect the pheromones they emitted from a hundred yards away. To his disgust, only the stench of humans and their foul waste reached his nostrils. No female was nearby, which meant Cadamus must expand his territory beyond the human burial ground and sanctuary he'd discovered in the basement of an abandoned building across the street.

  A dangerous but necessary undertaking.

  The city had changed greatly during the last quarter century, and the memories implanted in his brain by his parents weren't reliable. Cadamus would have to depend on strength and cunning to survive.

  And survive he would.

  Before launching himself into flight, he cast a last look at the Huntsman. Wrapping an arm around his mate, the Huntsman drew her to him, protecting her from the loud, smoking machines the humans called automobiles.

  Cadamus would have never abandoned the search for his enemy to protect a female, especially one so frail and helpless.

  Cadamus reveled in his superiority over the Huntsman, and his confidence soared. This cycle, he would prevail, defeat his enemy, and be revered for eternity as the founder of his race.

  "Live, Huntsman," he said and spread his wings to catch a warm current of air. "Live well and to the fullest. For soon you will know what it is to die."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "You like cappuccino?"

  Nick's smile was warm and friendly and kind of sexy if a woman went for the boy-next-door look. Definitely not the smile of a deranged killer.

  So, Gillian told herself, she had nothing to worry about. Right? Deranged killers didn't smile like the boy next door.

  "I ... ah ... yeah."

  "Good. Me, too." He returned to the counter, opened a cupboard, and reached inside. "I only have instant, if that's okay with you."

  Little did he know he'd earned major points with her just by having cappuccino, instant or not.

  "You're not one of those metrosexuals?" she asked, studying his kitchen and the adjoining living room, both the size of a shoe box and neat as a pin.

  "Do I look like a metrosexual?" He filled a neon orange teapot with water and set it on a tiny three burner stove to boil, then removed a pair of ceramic mugs with delicate Chinese lettering on the sides.

  "You didn't this afternoon in my office but now. .." She shrugged.

  In a flash, his smile changed from boy next door to bad boy, and Gillian's heart somersaulted.

  "I'm confident enough in my masculinity not to have to flaunt it."

  Observing him from beneath lowered lashes, she couldn't disagree. There was, she'd begun to suspect, a whole lot more to Nick Blackwater than met the eye.

  Were circumstances different, if the creature were dead and her father a,., free man, she might be interested in peeling back Nick's many layers one by one. In fact, as she admired the way his shirt stretched across his broad back, she had a sudden and uncharacteristic urge to peel off his clothes as well.

  The teapot whistled, and Nick busied himself with preparing their coffees. A minute later, he set a mug in front of her, its frothy contents nearly spilling over the top. "Don't suppose you're ready to tell me what you were doing at the cemetery tonight?"

  He dropped into the seat across from her, and the already small. dining set shrank to the size of dollhouse furniture. To avoid bumping knees, Nick stretched his right leg out alongside her chair.

  Gillian tried not to feel trapped. "Yes, well, I guess you're wondering about that."

  "A little."

  Tracing the lettering on her mug with a fingernail, she thought fast and hard and opted for a partial truth before coining clean. "I was doing research for my next book."

  He sipped his cappuccino and when done, wiped off the residual creamy mustache with the back of his hand. Gillian's guard slipped a notch despite her resolve not to let it.

  "Personal or professional research?" he asked.

  How much did he really know about her, she wondered, then chided herself. If she planned on enlisting his aid, she'd have to trust him. And who better to trust than a man with pretty mugs and zero fear factor when it came chasing down a story?

  "Both. Personal and professional." The cappuccino, while not great, was hot and went down smoothly. She tipped her mug at him in a gesture of appreciation. "Thanks, by the way."

  "Do you think the creature killed the old woman? Is that why you were at the cemetery?"

  She phrased her reply carefully. "I don't have an opinion on the creature one way or the other."

  "Quit with the bullshit, Gillian." Nick's tone and amiable expression didn't match his harsh words.

  "I beg your pardon?" She strived to appear affronted.

  He didn't fall for her act. "You said you wanted my help."

  "Did I?" Taking another sip of cappuccino, she retreated behind her mug.

  "Yes, you did. And to get it, you're going to have to level with me."

  "I thought I already had your help. `Always had."' She peeked at him over the mountain of froth. "What exactly did you mean by that?"

  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves." He leaned forward, rested his forearms on the table, and stared straight at her.

  Or was it through her? Gillian gripped her mug, and the pesky shiver she thought she'd banished danced through her again.

  "Tell me what you know about the creature and what you want with it," Nick said, "then we'll negotiate the terms of my help."

  "You talk as if it's real."

  "Real is subjective, depending on the per-"

  "Now you quit with the bullshit," she said pointedly.

  Nick arched his brows, considered her for a moment with that intense stare of his she remembered from her office, then said, "Fair's fair."

  Gillian nodded and waited for him to elaborate, her stomach churning. She blamed her queasiness on the strange events of the last two hours. Late-night walks in cemeteries, highly charged encounters with a man she'd just met, and discussing the creature-all tended to wreak havoc on her equanimity.

  In retrospect, returning with Nick to his apartment had been a mistake. But she'd been unnerved and he'd been solicitous and anything had sounded better than walking back to her car alone.

  Would she ever start looking before she leaped? When he said no more, she rose and contemplated calling a cab on her cell phone. "It's getting late, and I still have papers to grade."

  "Wait." Nick put a hand over hers. "Don't go yet."

  Soothing warmth seeped into her skin. She wavered, caught him gazing at her, and was held fast by his sinfully dark eyes, which were as full of promise as they were danger.

  The longer she stared at him, the less she felt like leaving. Eventually, the need to escape vanished alto-

  gether. When she resumed her seat, he leaned back, still scrutinizing her and still holding her hand.

  Gillian caught herself conducting a mental inventory of her appearance and put an immediate stop to it. Like she cared what Nick thought of her.

  Don't you?

  "All right," he said, apparently reaching some sort of decision. "We'll take turns. I'll start, you finish. But be warned, you're not getting out of here until you tell me what it is you want from me. Understood?" He applied a slight pressure to her fingers.

  Gillian swallowed. "Understood."

  "You're not
the only one who's seen the creature." "I never said I saw it."

  He shot her a warning glance. "No bullshit, remember?"

  A shudder went through her, one of recognition. "You've seen it, too."

  "Twenty-five years ago. When I was a kid." "Oh, thank God."

  Relief rendered Gillian weak, and she buried her face in her hands. Finally, here was someone who had seen the creature and wasn't residing in a mental heath facility or otherwise unbalanced. Nick could speak at her father's next parole hearing. Between his testimony and the video or photos he'd take for her, her father was sure to be released.

  This must be what he meant when he said she'd always had his help.

  "You okay?"

  She lifted her face to him and sighed. "Yes."

  Only when Nick reached out and cradled her cheek with his hand did she realize she was crying.

  "Sorry." She drew back and averted her head, in advertently planting her lips squarely in the center of his palm.

  At the intimate contact, a jolt of electricity shot through Gillian, and she inadvertently gasped. Nick withdrew his hand, though not quickly and not before she accidentally tasted him with the tip of her tongue.

  A wave of heat rolled over her, leaving in its wake a jumble of sensations too confusing to separate, much less understand.

  Gillian sat, frozen, flushed with embarrassment, and more turned on than she dare admit. Tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, she debated crawling under the table or better yet, bolting for the front door.

  What in God's name was happening to her? Ever since she met Nick, it was as if she'd become a different person-she thought differently, acted strangely, and felt a whole new range of emotions foreign to her.

  "Gillian."

  "I don't make a habit of going home with men I hardly know," she said firmly, lest he jump to the wrong conclusion about what happened. "And I ... don't . . ."

  "French-kiss their palm?" Nick finished for her.

  "This isn't funny."

  Pressing a hand to her forehead, she sighed. Could anything else go wrong tonight?

  "If it helps," Nick said with a chuckle, "I enjoyed it. Though I think I'd enjoy it more if you aimed for my mouth next time."