The Lost (Sin Hunters)

by Piñeiro, Caridad

“Find out if this woman is a Shadow. If so, we will have to be extremely careful.”

  “What about the man?” Eduardo asked.

  “Watch and wait. We must determine if he is our son before we do anything else.”

  Clasping their hands to their chests in a salute and bowing their heads, the two men exited the room and the cadre followed, leaving him alone with his wife.

  “Could we be so wrong?” Selina asked, the gray of her eyes like storm clouds over the desert they had left time and time again in their quest to find Kikin. This time their journey had been prompted by a grainy photo in a newspaper article. One of the men in the photo had looked like the Texas Ranger who had taken their son nearly twenty years earlier.

  Kellen turned, his knees brushing against hers. He pushed back a stray lock of hair and tucked it behind her ear. Her hair had once been a wealth of coppery brown, but even there worry had taken its toll. Brash streaks of white salted the strands.

  “The years may have faded our recollection of his powers, Warmi,” he said, using her ancient name instead of the modern ones they had adopted to hide their true origins.

  “Nothing could take away my memory of Kikin’s aura. It was unique. Powerful,” Selina replied, her tone brooking no disagreement.

  Kellen knew better than to argue with his strong-willed wife. “We will know soon enough, my love. If it is Kikin, the strength of his power will be growing as he nears the Equinox.”

  For the Hunters, each third of their life brought changes. The years immediately surrounding the initial thirty—the first triad—represented the zenith of a Hunter’s powers and fertility.

  “But if the Equinox comes upon him, he may die or injure another without our help,” Selina said worriedly.

  “He is young enough that his change may not happen until he is with us and can mate with the Quinchu from the Ocean clan.”

  Selina dipped her head and cradled the sharp line of Kellen’s jaw. “What of the woman with the aura? What if she is one of the Shadows?”

  With a careless shrug, Kellen replied, “We do what we always do. We kill her.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  One of his security people had delivered a thumb drive with the video Adam had requested barely an hour after the incident. Adam slipped the thumb drive into his computer, then hesitated, his mind replaying that initial shocking jolt of power as the first man had laid hands on him. Would the video from the security system show that thunderbolt or any of the others that followed? he wondered while worrying about the secrecy of such a revelation.

  With a quick wave of his hand, the video began to play on the large-screen television at the far side of his office, and Adam rose to stand in front of it.

  The image of him leaving the building, absorbed in his phone messages, played on the screen. Shortly thereafter, the first glimpse of Bobbie, leaning against the car in a simple white T-shirt molded to ample breasts and curve-hugging jeans, grabbed his attention. The video had not picked up her intense cerulean aura.

  While the video had not documented the evidence of her power, it had recorded Adam’s initial reaction at his first glimpse of Bobbie, the quick glance followed by a slower obvious double-take. Part of it had been because of the waves of energy he had sensed surrounding her. But it had also been plain ol’ male appreciation: Bobbie Carrera was a very attractive woman.

  That thought fled quickly as he viewed each development on the screen. Even now, safe in his office, the memory of the men’s touch brought fear, making his gut clench and causing sweat to gather at the base of his spine. Very little on the video gave testament that there had been anything different about the men or about Bobbie.

  Except for possibly the streaks of light as he had intercepted the one man midair and then again when the men had disappeared into the van and raced away.

  Adam paused the video at that point with a sharp slash of his hand. Approaching the large-screen television, he realized that part of a license plate was visible. But you didn’t have to watch a lot of cop shows to know that either the cars or the license plates involved in crimes like these were usually stolen.

  Adam shut off the television and returned to his desk, frustrated that the recording hadn’t yielded anything new or valuable.

  As he plopped into his chair, he thought about all the possible reasons for the attack.

  It hadn’t been a simple mugging. The first man had said that they wanted him, so it was more likely it had been a kidnapping, but why? Because he was like them or for some human kind of reason?

  Money? he considered. As of that morning, he was worth close to ten million, thanks to a surge in the SolTerra stock price, but he wasn’t sure if someone would take such a risk in broad daylight. There were far richer people in the area, and without his approval, no one could move funds out of the various accounts in order to pay any ransom.

  A grudge? he thought, not that either he or his company had received any complaints against them. But then he recalled how distraught his father had been lately. Adam had thought the anxiety had to do with one of his father’s cases. But now, after what had just happened, it occurred to him that it was possible that his father had been aware of some kind of risk to Adam and had been keeping it a secret to avoid worrying him.

  There was only one way to find out, but before he asked Salvatore he had one other possibility to eliminate—that Bobbie was somehow connected to what had happened. It just seemed too convenient that she should be there with her aura at the same time as the two men with their obvious energy signatures.

  Adam turned to his computer. He closed his eyes and pushed forward with his energy, commanding the machine to begin a web search using just his power. Within moments he had gotten dozens of hits for Bobbie Carrera and the other members of her family.

  The images and information surged from the computer into his brain, where he processed the data at speeds far faster than that of any human.

  High school yearbook pictures of Bobbie were posted on a friend’s Facebook account. She hadn’t changed much in the six years since graduating. That would make her about twenty-four, he calculated.

  There were articles from the local papers about the Carrera clan. Besides Tony, Bobbie had two older siblings, and her parents ran a popular Mexican restaurant in nearby Bradley Beach, not that he had ever eaten there, although he lived and worked nearby. Adam continued surfing through all the digital data spewing out of the computer until he encountered a short article about Bobbie and her platoon. Sixteen men dead in an IED attack. Only Bobbie and her platoon leader had survived.

  The graphic images of the aftermath jolted him, breaking his mental connection with the computer. Emotion had once again disrupted his control. Resuming the search through more traditional means, he continued reading the article about Bobbie and her men.

  She had survived, but broken, he thought, recalling the evident pain on her face after the incident and the sensation of scarred skin and bunched muscle beneath his fingertips.

  He shouldn’t have touched her, especially not in his wired condition after the attack. Too late he had noticed the leakage of energy from his fingertips. The recollection rekindled the sensation of Bobbie’s skin beneath his fingers.

  So warm.

  Amazingly alive.

  He imagined moving his hand from her arm to the fragile skin where her shoulder met her neck. Trailing it downward to cup those generous breasts outlined so beautifully by her simple white T-shirt. Taking off that shirt. Would her nipples be dark as berries and taste as sweet?

  He sucked in a shaky breath as he hardened and readjusted the fabric of his pants over his erection. He forced his mind from such thoughts, reminding himself that he barely knew her despite the intense synergy when he had touched her.

  But her obvious physical distress and courage in the face of that had reached deep inside him that afternoon, prompting a surge of emotion and energy. It had danced along his fingertips as he skimmed his hand along that
injured flesh. Before today the few times he had accidentally released his power had been shocking. Literally.

  Since learning of his abilities, he had guarded his touch, fearful of it after he had innocently created havoc with just the brush of his hands. Shapeshifting, blasts of power, or just vibrations could occur when he came into contact with other living things.

  Today had been different from anything which had transpired in the past.

  He’d wanted to help her, and with that want had come the unexpected—a gentle kiss of energy wherever his skin had met hers, a living and demanding connection like none he had ever experienced. Desire, unforeseen and demanding.

  His gut tightened with the possibility that he could just as easily have hurt her if he had lost command of his power. As it was, she had clearly been in pain from her actions during the attack.

  The attack.

  Those words drove away the last of his passion and pulled him back to his worries, including those about Bobbie.

  Bobbie, he thought with a sigh, recalling the intensity in her whiskey-eyed gaze. He hoped she hadn’t caught his disappearing and reappearing act when he shot through the air to wrestle one of the assailants to the ground.

  As for him, he needed to find out more about the two men and whoever was driving the van. But for right now, his immediate goal was to discover more about the woman he could not forget. Swiveling in his chair, he faced his computer and accessed his company’s employment records. He located Tony’s personal info and with a mental command dialed his intern’s cell number. Tony picked up on the third ring.

  “Tony, this is Adam Bruno,” he said, and heard Tony shushing the people in the background. From the clink of plates and glasses and the murmured conversation, along with the occasional blare of a horn, Adam guessed that his employee was at some kind of outdoor restaurant.

  Perhaps his family’s restaurant in Bradley Beach?

  “Mr. Bruno. Sorry for the noise. I’m at work. Is it an emergency?”

  Work? Adam wondered, then realized he had said it aloud when Tony quickly replied, “At my parents’ restaurant. I help out here at night. Do you need something?”

  “I hadn’t heard from you about your sister.”

  “I didn’t think you were serious about me calling you.”

  Adam had thought himself fairly in touch and responsive to his employees, but clearly his perceptions were off.

  “Is Bobbie okay? Is there anything I can do?” he said, striving for the kind of tone in his voice that would leave no doubt about his sincerity.

  The muffled sound of Tony speaking was followed by a more distant female voice. Bobbie. The distance did nothing to lessen the immediate tightening of his gut and the flare of longing.

  “She says she’s fine, Mr. Bruno. Is there anything else I can do for you?” Tony replied, clearly anxious to return to work.

  “No. Not at all. Sorry to bother you,” he replied, and hung up.

  Tapping the edge of the smartphone to the tip of his chin, he considered Tony’s answer. His intern was at his family’s restaurant and his sister was obviously there as well. He checked the time on the phone. Five-thirty. He hoped that she might be there for a bit longer. He had found her address online, and a look through her home might provide some insights into Bobbie and her life.

  Shoving away from his desk to pay that visit, he stuffed the report on a new technology for battery arrays into his briefcase. He still needed to review it after postponing his meeting, and he would later tonight after a little breaking and entering.

  Maybe some reading in bed before sleep time. Which was so wrong, he thought. He was in the prime of his life and he was taking a lab report to bed with him instead of a warm and willing woman like Bobbie. Chalk it up to his being very selective about with whom he slept—generally women to whom he had no emotional attachment.

  Unlike Bobbie, who had been innocently challenging him and earning him a big fail in the restraint department. Cursing beneath his breath, he grabbed the briefcase and stormed out of his office, one thought in his head.

  He had to learn all he could about Bobbie so that he could drive her out of his mind.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Bobbie’s home was in a condo unit located on Ocean Avenue in Ocean Grove. High-end for someone who was likely living on a military paycheck.

  He parked his car around the corner and stepped out, considering for a moment that he should just approach her to talk about all that had happened. But he wasn’t sure she would welcome the kinds of questions he would ask. If he could get inside, he might get some needed information.

  He walked across the street until he was standing opposite the condo. Even from a distance he could see it had a plain old mechanical lock, so using his energy to trip the mechanism would be impossible.

  Behind him on the street was a row of brightly painted Victorian homes. The homes were situated close together, with small alleys between some of them, the perfect spot for what he needed to do.

  As he stood there, the door to the condo building opened and someone walked out carrying a burly black cat, placed the cat down on the sidewalk, and then hurried up the block. The cat immediately made a run across the street and straight toward one of the nearby homes. The feline sat a few feet back from the mouth of one of those alleys as if waiting for someone or something. With dusk falling heavily and the streets relatively empty, Adam easily slipped unnoticed down the alley until he was about a foot away from the cat.

  He bent and beckoned to the animal. Luckily it was a people-friendly house cat, obviously well-fed and not all that skittish. As the cat came close, it twined around his legs and then peered up at him with inquisitive golden eyes. Then it meowed loudly before plopping itself at his feet Buddhalike and purring.

  Glancing around, Adam realized there was no one nearby.

  Perfect.

  Bending, he laid his hands on the cat and stroked her. Her purrs grew louder as she continued to gaze up at him with her intense slant-eyed gaze. The vibrations registered against his fingers. Her heartbeat, slow at first, sped up as she sensed the connection between them and grew afraid. He continued his soft caress, trying to calm her as he slowly pulled her feline energy into him.

  Within him warmth pooled at his core, and the weight of the power expanded with the addition of the cat’s energy. As the transfer of her life force proceeded, the deep sable color of her fur spread onto his hands, and the cat blinked at him once, twice, before closing her eyes and slumping to the brick walk in the alley.

  Gently he scooped her up and laid her in a tiny niche where she would be safe from passersby, giving one last peaceful stroke along her body before he severed the connection with her so that she could rest and recuperate.

  Using the life force he had gathered, he focused on it and concentrated its unique signature. He forced the feline potency along his nerve endings, which tingled as the transformation took hold. His muscles tightened and shortened and his bones compacted, became denser, in preparation for the change. Intense heat developed in his center and it grew heavier as his body mass pulled inward to shrink the size of his body to that of the cat.

  Worried the change was taking too long and he might be discovered, he blasted out the remaining feline energy all across his being and into the immediate space around him.

  In the blink of an eye, the intense wave of power finally altered him, and Adam took the form of a black cat.

  Slinking out of the alley in his sleek new body, he padded toward the sidewalk in front of the homes. He sat there, gazing up and down the street. He had shapeshifted before, but experiencing the world from a new perspective never ceased to amaze him. The cement of the sidewalk was rough beneath the pads of his paws. As a car drove by along the street, the whir of the tires was loud and vibrated the hairs close to the entrance of his ears.

  His transformed body reacted instinctively, jumping away from the noise as the cat’s innate responses overwhelmed his senti
ent ones. He shook his head as a fly buzzed close by and the tags dragging from the collar around his neck jangled with the motion.

  So different, he thought. It was the first time he had gone out in public in a nonhuman form. Normally he kept to the confines of his own quiet yard as he tested that aspect of his powers.

  Increasing his pace, he hurried to the curb, but as a car came around the corner, he once again jerked back from the street. He slinked between two parked cars and waited, then dashed across when he was sure he would not become roadkill.

  He padded straight ahead until he was sitting by the front door of Bobbie’s condominium building. He contemplated waiting there, but that could take quite a bit of time, unless the cat’s owner was only out for a short walk. A rustle in the nearby mounds of flowers hinted that he might find a field mouse and risk another change, but then the sound of a car door closing snagged his attention.

  A bottle-green Sebring convertible with a handicapped tag hanging from the rearview mirror had slipped into a spot near the condo. As he watched, Bobbie eased from the car and grabbed a few things from the front seat. Then she came down the walk carrying the bags and headed straight for him.

  Something inside the cat responded at the sight of her, and Adam hoped that was a good sign. Maybe Bobbie was familiar to the animal, which would make this even easier. At the door, Bobbie looked down at him and said, “Have they tossed you out again, Tweety?”

  Tweety? What kind of sick person would name a cat Tweety? he thought, a second before Bobbie bent and started rubbing the top of his head. Almost instinctively he craned his neck upward, urging her hand behind his ear as she continued petting him.

  Heaven, he thought, enjoying the feel of her short nails against his fur. He began to purr and then butted his head against her leg, wanting more.

  “You’re a good girl,” she said and stroked her hand along his back.

  He twined around her legs and Bobbie gave him one last pat before she stood. “Sorry, Tweety. It’s time to go in.”