Witch Hunter

by Shannon Curtis

  She frowned. “No. I don’t run from anything.” She didn’t try to delude herself anymore, either. She’d worked damn hard over the last four years, and felt stronger than she ever had before. Hell, she’d been strong enough to hold off a Witch Hunter. No. She didn’t run from anything, not anymore.

  “When I said safe place, I mean for an empath. They shut everything down. With these people, I don’t have to shield myself so much, I don’t have to protect myself. They become my wall.” She trailed her finger along the sink. “You have no idea what that is like, for someone like me. To not have to constantly watch for emotion, to always guard against everyone around you.” Sully lifted her gaze to meet his. “So when someone starts killing these very special friends of mine, I want to help stop that. And you can’t do this on your own.”

  Dave lifted his chin. “Of course I can.”

  Sully’s eyebrow rose. “Really? How many nulls have talked to you about Gary? About his mother?”

  Dave’s lips pursed, and Sully’s gaze was drawn to them. They looked...soft. Just a little plump—not stung-by-a-bee plump, but kissy-plump.

  And here she was again, getting all woozy-doozy over the wrong kind of man. She cleared her throat. Focus. Think of Gary, and Mary Anne...

  “Please, tell me what happened to them. Let me help you. What did you see?”

  Dave sighed, his breath gusting over her bare shoulder. She trembled. She couldn’t deny it, the sensation was...nice.

  He held up a finger. “Fine. I’ll tell you, but this is my gig. We’re not partners, you’re not doing any investigating, you’re—” He hesitated, as though trying to find the right word. “You’re a consultant.”

  A consultant? That wasn’t going to work for her, but she knew when to pick her battles. She gave him a nod. Just one. Enough to make him think she actually agreed.

  He reached past her and started to run some water into the sink, then reached for the detergent on the windowsill. “I see a blade in the heart, which is the kill action that gets the Ancestors involved,” he told her. He started washing the breakfast dishes, and she grabbed a tea towel from the oven handle, and started to dry as he handed her the cleaned dishes.

  “Then he—or she,” he added, “removes the knife from the chest, and carves some sort of symbol into their wrist, squeezes some of their blood out—”

  Sully looked up at him when he stopped talking. His mouth was curled in distaste. “Go on,” she urged him. “I’m no shrinking violet.”

  He turned his head to look at her. This close, she could see the light of his eyes behind the lenses, maybe even his eyelashes. She saw his gaze drift over her. “You’re not, are you?” He was making a comment, more than asking a question. He washed the frying pan and set it on the drainer next to the sink, and pulled the plug.

  “He squeezes some of their blood out and drinks it.”

  Sully scrunched up her face. “Ew, gross.”

  “He—or she—says a few words, and then I get bumped.”

  Sully wiped up the frying pan and bent down to put in her pot cupboard. “And that’s not normal?”

  “No.”

  She frowned in puzzlement. “I wonder if he—or she...?” She looked at Dave. “You really don’t know whether it’s a man or a woman?”

  Dave shook his head. “I really don’t, and I’m an equal opportunity hunter. The killer wears gloves and whispers the spell. Can’t tell whether it’s a guy or a chick, and I know chicks can be just as psycho-crazy as guys.”

  “Oh,” Sully said faintly. “Good to know.”

  He turned to face her, and folded those big, beautiful arms of his again. She shook her head slightly. Stop staring at those arms. “Uh, so, we have a witch who has killed nulls. Nulls.” She shook her head again. “I don’t get it.”

  “Neither do I.” Dave sighed.

  “Maybe the witch didn’t realize Gary and Mary Anne were nulls,” she thought aloud. “Maybe the witch thought they were ordinary humans. I can’t see what benefit he’d get out of killing a null—” She frowned, and tapped the sink. “Drinking null blood—that’s going to reduce his powers. I don’t get it. He must not have known.”

  “I need to find out more about the guy, and his mother. Who they came into contact with, who might have held a grudge—who stands to gain from their deaths...”

  “We can talk to Jenny,” Sully said, turning toward the door. Dave caught hold of her arm.

  Fierce protectiveness, warm and snug, curled around her. Exasperation. Frustration. Curiosity. Damn it, he was doing it again, plowing through her shields as if they were made of tissue. Why couldn’t she block this guy?

  “Whoa, sweetness. I’ll go talk to Jenny. I’ll do it subtly. I don’t want to go around announcing I’m a Witch Hunter, here to kill a witch. One—it would be around this town before I got out the door, and two—that’s a conversation I really don’t want to have with your sheriff.”

  Sully glanced down at his hand. “She won’t talk to you,” she told him.

  Dave’s lip’s curled in a lazy smile. “I’ll have you know some women find me charming.”

  She just bet they did. Smoking hot muscles, sexy smile, a handsome face and an overall impression of...experience.

  “I told her we broke up because you cheated on me. My best friend won’t give you the time of day unless I’m with you. And this is a small town. How many nulls do you think know about you now?”

  His grip slackened, but not before she felt the flash of surprise. She continued on her way to the door. “You’re not the only one who can tell a fib.”

  * * *

  Dave shoved his hands in his jeans’ rear pockets and tried to make himself comfortable against the wall. He hadn’t even bothered to try the tiny little seats attached to the tiny little desks. Had he ever been that small as a kid? The kids were outside on a short break, and it was surprisingly relaxing, hearing the kids’ chatter and laughter outside, a little muted, while he stood in the silence inside the room.

  Okay, maybe not that relaxing. He lifted his gaze from the students’ desks to realize Sully’s friend was still staring at him. Coldly.

  Well played, Sully. There was no way he’d be able to get this woman, or any of the nulls they’d passed on the way in who’d given him similar death stares, to give him the time of day, let alone any solid information on the victims.

  “So you want to find out more about Gary and Mary Anne, huh? Why?” Jenny definitely wasn’t sounding cooperative. He pursed his lips as he looked over at his new “partner”.

  Sully nodded, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room. “We want to find out who did this.”

  Jenny frowned. “Why?”

  Sully frowned back at her. “Why not?”

  Jenny’s eyebrows rose. “We’re not used to others being interested in what happens to us.”

  Dave watched as Sully folded her arms. “Jenny, this affects all of us. A murder is a murder, no matter who the victim is.”

  Jenny tilted her head. “Sully, you have no idea how many nulls have been murdered in the past where it’s been treated as though they were dogs being put down. Heck, Reform doesn’t even recognize us as a breed of our own. We are a subset.”

  Dave winced. Sully’s friend had a valid and sobering point.

  Sully’s frown deepened. “Have you ever felt like I’ve treated you like a subset?”

  Jenny’s eyes widened. “Of course not,” she said hurriedly. “No, you’ve been so generous and helpful with all of us, especially with—”

  “Nothing,” Sully interjected, and Dave’s eyebrow rose.

  “Uh, nothing that I wouldn’t do again,” Sully quickly supplied, her cheeks blooming with heat. Dave’s eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses. What had she done for them? What had she done that she didn’t want him to know about?

  Jenny’s
gaze slid quickly between Dave and Sully, then back to Dave, and she nodded. “Exactly.” She tried to mask the confusion and curiosity about them, but apparently Sully’s friend was about as good as Sully when it came to lying.

  So Sully’s friend knew whatever it was his sweet little partner was into. He shelved that observation for later.

  “When someone hurts you guys,” Sully said quietly, stepping up to Jenny’s desk, “I hurt, because you guys are my friends. You’re my family.”

  Dave found himself wondering what had happened with Sully’s original family. She’d made comments about her First Degree classes, so she’d been brought up in a coven, but where were they now? And why had she left them?

  Jenny smiled, although there was a tinge of sadness to it. “Thanks, Sully. That’s so lovely to hear.” The young woman turned to face him, and her eyes narrowed. “So why do you want to help?”

  “Uh...” He wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. Sully had shut down his one plausible excuse for being in town. He needed to set the record straight. “Look, about Sully and me—”

  “He’s trying to make it up to me.” Sully’s quick interruption made his mouth slack. What was she doing?

  “Don’t you think that’s too little, too late?” Jenny commented.

  Dave looked at Sully. What happened to setting folks straight? For right now, though, it would work for him. He could adapt. “I made a mistake,” he said, and this time it wasn’t so much a lie but a variation of the truth. “I need to make things right between us.”

  “So you’re going to do that by...looking into a couple of null murders?”

  “He’s also got skills in this area,” Sully added. “He’s an investigator.”

  This time Jenny eyed him shrewdly, and he felt like he was being measured carefully.

  “You mean, like a cop?”

  Dave shuddered. “Not quite.” Not at all.

  “A private dick, or something?”

  Hell, this was getting worse. He frowned. “Or something.”

  “Seems apt,” Jenny muttered, and Dave noticed that Sully was trying not to smile and failing spectacularly.

  Great. “Uh, Gary and Mary Anne—did they have any enemies? Did they owe money? Did Gary...cheat?”

  Both women frowned at him. “No,” they said in unison.

  Jenny rose from her seat. “Gary loved Lucy. There was nobody else for him. Mary Anne—she was well respected in our community. Loved, even. Gary really tried to help with these kids, and everyone could see that. He was a nice guy, and didn’t deserve what he got.”

  She glanced out toward the kids lining up in the schoolyard. “Look, I can’t talk now, I have to go.” She smiled at Sully. “Come over to Mom and Dad’s for dinner. A few of us are getting together to remember the Adlers. We can talk, then.” Her gaze slid to Dave. “You may as well come, too.”

  He nodded. “Fine.” He would have loved to have talked more, but maybe this way he’d get a chance to talk with more of the nulls, and get a better sense of what these Adler folk were really like—and how they became the target of a murderous witch. He followed Jenny out to the door, but halted when she paused.

  “If you hurt Sully again, I’m going to pulverize your nuts,” she said in a low voice, then smiled brightly at the kids lining up outside the door. “Hey, guys!”

  Dave’s eyebrows rose as the fierce woman of less than a second ago morphed into a sweet kindergarten teacher as she walked out to the students. Sully stepped up behind him, and he turned to glance briefly at her. What was it with the women in this area? So nice, so...he kept coming back to the word, but he couldn’t find one that fit better than sweet. So damn sweet. And so dangerous you had to guard your life, your gonads and your heart.

  Sully raised her eyebrows when she saw him looking at her. “Is everything all right?”

  He nodded as they stepped down toward the parking lot. Sully turned and waved as her name was called, and then stopped to catch a little red-haired boy who literally threw himself at her. She laughed as she set him down.

  “Hey, Noah. How are you doing?”

  “Good! Are you still coming to the festival?”

  “I sure am! Don’t want to miss those donkeys. Hey, how are your mom and dad?”

  “Dad says he’s going to catch you a big tuna!”

  “And what does your mom say?” Sully asked with a knowing glint in her eye.

  “Mom says we’re having mac and cheese, then.”

  Dave’s eyebrows rose at the comment, and Sully grinned. “Well, you tell your dad that if he does catch that tuna, I’ll have to make you all my tuna and rice bake.”

  “Noah! Come on, we have to get back to work,” Jenny called from hallway.

  Noah sighed. “I have to go,” he said, and Sully nodded.

  “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Miss Forsyth has some art planned.”

  Noah’s face brightened, and he waved as he ran back to his class.

  Dave watched the pupils wave at Sully as they walked back into the building. There was no hiding from the fact that these kids adored her. Her friend, Jenny, seemed decent, once you got past her frosty defenses and painful threats, and she was protective of Sully—like any good, loyal friend. The nulls respected Sully. That was...unusual.

  He slid into the passenger seat of her beat-up car, and glanced over as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “How did you get so cozy with the nulls?” he asked, curious.

  She frowned as she started her car. “What do you mean? They’re people. They’re nice people.”

  “Yeah, but they’re also a fairly closed community. They don’t like outsiders.”

  “I guess they don’t see me as an outsider then,” she said simply as she drove away from the school.

  “Hmm.” He leaned back in his seat and watched the scenery flash by. How was it that a witch was able to be accepted by a null community? They normally avoided everyone with supernatural abilities, and the practitioners of magic did the same. He frowned.

  “They don’t know you’re a witch, do they?”

  She kept her gaze on the road. “I can’t be a witch around them, so it doesn’t really come into the conversation. I can’t do spells, I can’t do rituals, I can’t practice magic near them, so when I’m with them, I’m not really a witch, am I?”

  His eyebrows rose. “Wow. That’s an interesting defense.”

  She frowned. “Defense? Defense for what?”

  “You’re lying to them.”

  She shook her head, flashing him a brief but pointed glare. “No. I’m not. I’ve never said I’m not a witch. In their presence, I’m just plain old me. Normal.” She held up a finger as he opened his mouth to argue. “And that’s me without any shields or artifice, so in reality, I’m more me when I’m with them, than when I’m not. Totally authentic.”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, raising his sunglasses just a little. “Your logic is giving me a headache.” He positioned his shades and stared out the window. She’d mentioned something similar before, about how she didn’t have to block herself when she was with the nulls. And yet, she kept this one important, innate detail about herself from the community she said she trusted. But if she couldn’t be a witch around them, like she said—was she really lying to them? Or just omitting a detail about herself that had no impact on them?

  “Where to now?” Sully asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  “The graveyard, please,” he said. “I need to pick up my bike.”

  Sully nodded, then flicked him a quick glance. “Then what are we doing?”

  “Well, I have to find a place to sleep,” he told her. “I wasn’t expecting to stay in town this long.” He shifted in his seat. No, he’d fully expected to roll into town, kill Sullivan Timmerman and then roll on out again. “Can you recommend any places to stay?”

 
Sully frowned. “There’s a motel down south, about thirty minutes’ drive. Nothing much up north. We’re not really a tourist mecca.”

  He frowned. Thirty minutes away. That was a little too far from the action. “Nothing closer?”

  Sully drove carefully around the bends of the coastal road, then looked at him briefly. “I have a foldout couch,” she offered.

  His eyebrows rose. Staying with Sully...he could feel his body throb at the prospect, and tried to hose it down with rational thought. Sully was nice. And she didn’t date—she wasn’t the love-’em-and-leave-’em type of woman. She was a lady, and deserved so much more than the frolic-in-the-bedsheets that he was limited to offering.

  But...she could give him access to the nulls, provide some local information in the tracking down of this killer.

  And it would be pure hell living in the same house and not touching her. He eyed her hands on the steering wheel. Her skin was covered in small marks, a legacy of the craft she worked. They weren’t the soft hands of a woman who did office work. They revealed a delicate strength, and a capacity for pain and perseverance. Almost like the dainty hands of a warrior, if that was possible. He wondered what it would feel like to have her hands on his body. He could feel himself growing hard at the prospect.

  And that was exactly why he should stay the hell away from Sully, and her foldout couch. He couldn’t afford to be distracted from his duty.

  “Thanks, that would be great,” he said, then glanced back out the passenger window. Hell, here I come. He tried to distract himself, and thought about what they’d learned from Jenny—pretty much nothing. He frowned.

  “Why didn’t you let me set Jenny straight about us?”

  Sully’s lips pursed as she focused on the road. “You heard her. There is a real us and them attitude there. If you don’t want people to know who you really are, tell them something they’ll believe. I couldn’t think of another way for us to get them to talk.”

  He looked at her carefully. If you don’t want people to know who you really are, tell them something they’ll believe. That had just rolled off her tongue, as though she was talking from experience. She was talking about convincing people, not about telling them the truth. What other “omissions” was she guilty of? The difference between what he knew about his new “consultant”, and what he didn’t know, just got greater.