The Lost (Sin Hunters)

by Piñeiro, Caridad

  Walking directly up to William, Christopher leaned toward his father’s captain until his nose was almost bumping the other man’s face. Christopher was several inches taller and broader, but it wasn’t the physical differences that made him dangerous.

  “Andrew belonged to me. His energy was mine.”

  He placed his hand on William’s shoulder, and with only a scintilla of power, the tendrils of his life force dug into William, weaving into his aura and beginning to suck the energy from the other man.

  “Christopher. I live only to please,” William implored him, his face growing pale from the drain on his vitality. The first blotch emerged on his cheek and grew to a raised pustule. A second soon erupted as the pox in William’s body took over while Christopher sucked his life away.

  Christopher could taste the man’s fear as William’s energy melded with his own. But Christopher was not like his father, acting without thought or responsibility.

  “Go, and take this man with you. I will pick my own cadre members,” Christopher said and, with a blast, returned the energy to his father’s captain.

  The pox pustules that had scarred William’s cheek a moment before vanished. But rather than make his exit, the man hesitated, as if to attempt to change Christopher’s mind.

  “Go,” Christopher repeated, more forcefully, and his father’s men fled the office like whipped dogs.

  “You were harsh, Christopher,” Maya said.

  Even before she was near, Christopher sensed the throb of her sexual energy, a potent pheromone to Hunter men. At one time it had ensnared him and brought him great satisfaction. But lately it no longer satisfied. Despite that, Maya was the strongest of the female Shadows, and with his Equinox nearly upon him, he would mate with her for the good of the clan.

  When she was barely an inch from him, she laid her hand on his chest and released her energy, igniting a firestorm of need in his gut.

  “Do not play with me, Maya. I am not in the mood,” he warned.

  She coyly ran a finger up and down the front of his shirt. “Really, my love? You always liked to play,” she teased.

  “Empty games for an empty heart,” he said wearily, and something hardened in her gaze.

  “Do you not think that I wish for something different? But this is our destiny, Christopher, even if we both may not like it,” she spat, not waiting for his reply. Pivoting on one deadly spike of a heel, she flounced from the room.

  As the door closed behind her, Christopher actually experienced a moment of admiration at her honesty. Needing such truth from another area, he sat on the edge of his desk and asked his cadre captain, “What do you suppose this is all about, Ryan?”

  “Your father or Maya?” Ryan asked, and arched a brow.

  Christopher shook his head and chuckled harshly. “Both, actually.”

  Ryan shrugged. “Your father is not one to waste even an ion of power, which means he must have drained Andrew.”

  Because his father was a coldhearted and selfish bastard concerned only with his own needs, Christopher didn’t refute Ryan’s comments. But that presented its own set of complications.

  “Even if all he did was taste Andrew, he would sense the energy from the other night. From the Quinchu.”

  Ryan nodded and hunched his shoulders. “Which would explain in part why both William and Maya are here—to find the source of that power. But I sense there is something else going on.”

  “I sense it, too, my friend. My father is up to something, which means we must hurry to find where the Light Hunter is located,” Christopher said, and motioned to the map he had pinned up on the wall of his office. He had identified a general point of origin for the energy wave, and his men had been scouring the area. More than once they had detected hints of the power as well as remnants of something else—explosions of energy. Formidable blasts that had left behind a unique signature similar to that from the wave.

  “What do we do, Christopher?” his captain asked.

  “We keep on looking, but make sure to be vigilant for that weasel William and his man. He is sure to linger as long as possible before disappointing my father.”

  “Disappointment? Your father will be in a rage if William fails,” Ryan said.

  Christopher chuckled. “Yes, he will. Which is probably why he sent Maya as a safeguard. He’s hoping that at least one of them will provide him with the information he desires.”

  “So our plan is?” his captain asked.

  “To make sure my father does not get his hands on that energy.”

  “What about Maya?” Ryan asked, a hint of heat in his gaze.

  “Do I detect interest, my friend?”

  “With her affinity, she’s a bitch in heat, Chris. It’s hard not to respond when she’s around,” Ryan advised.

  Yes, it was hard not to respond physically, but as for emotionally… It was as he had said. Empty. Because of that, he wouldn’t deny his friend if he wanted to satisfy himself.

  “Maya was more than ready, Ryan. If she’s what you want—”

  “Am I crazy to think there may be more to her than just sexual energy?” Ryan asked, surprising him. Sadly, Christopher wasn’t sure there was, but better that Ryan find out for himself.

  Adam slapped the papers across his thigh, tired of reviewing the reports that his father had provided. He hadn’t needed them to know he was something other than human. Seeing the proof of it in the DNA analyses made an already difficult situation almost unbearable.

  Except that the tests had shown he was not alone. Somewhere long ago, Bobbie and he had shared some kind of genetic connection.

  It would explain so much, he thought. Her aura. The ability to handle the blasts of power. How they had joined more than their bodies when they made love.

  Tossing down the papers in frustration, Adam charged up the stairs and into the kitchen. The smells of the dinner he and Bobbie had been preparing the night before lingered in the space.

  Bobbie, he thought, experiencing a clenching pain in the center of his core at the thought she had somehow deceived him. Even without her physical presence he sensed that she, too, was suffering upset, presumably from what had happened the night before with Salvatore. A night that had started with the promise that he might have found the person to complete his life and that had ended so bitterly.

  Leaning back against the edge of the counter and bracing his hands there, he looked around the kitchen. The room was cold, lifeless, and sterile.

  More so with Bobbie gone.

  He wondered how it was that she could have made such an impact in his life in just a few days. And whether he was crazy to be wishing that she hadn’t been lying earlier. That he could trust her. But if he had faith in her, that meant he had to believe one other incredibly troubling thing: that his father was not telling the truth.

  The muscles in his gut twisted, because neither possibility was palatable.

  The financial reports his father had provided gave plenty of reasons why Bobbie might be lying, but nothing that he had seen so far about either Bobby or her family suggested they were capable of such deception. In fact, the articles and other items in the files hinted at people who were hardworking, patriotic, and responsible. What he knew of both Tony and Bobbie from his personal interaction with them supported that assessment.

  Although two nights ago Bobbie had lied to the police about the lightning-bolt throwing men with surprising ease. But she’d only done so to protect him… hadn’t she?

  Why hadn’t she told him she was barren? he wondered, but then recognized that they hadn’t reached the point in their relationship at which couples discussed such issues. He hadn’t even wanted to become emotionally involved with a woman because he had feared losing control of his powers and hurting her. Family had been even further removed from his mind.

  But he had not hurt Bobbie. If anything, he had helped her. And their lovemaking the day before…

  Unusual. Incredibly rewarding. Life-affirming.

&nb
sp; At first all he could see was the pain of the power within him, almost ready to explode. But she had reached beyond that somehow. Brought balance and stability and need. When he had released himself to her, the world had shifted, righting itself. With that connection had come even more as they had moved from the garage to the living room without taking a step, something he was still trying to puzzle out.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what he had thought in that second and realized that he had been thinking he couldn’t make love to her on the cold cement floor of the garage. He had wanted to be somewhere else with her.

  He imagined that again, shifting from the kitchen to the living room, and within him his core tightened like a spring being wound and then burst from his center.

  He opened his eyes and he was in his living room.

  He attempted it again, eyes open this time. After the initial coiling and release, everything around him blurred into streaks of color and light until he came to a jarring stop, this time in the garage.

  The images he had just seen brought back visions of the two men escaping into the van and of his rushing to Bobbie’s side the other night.

  Years earlier, when he had been searching for others who might have powers similar to his, he had run across a man who claimed to be an Aztec nahual. The man had possessed an aura, but it was just barely visible. He had tried to prove his abilities as a sorcerer by creating tiny balls of light, but they had been not much larger than a marble. When the man had claimed to be able to move through walls, Adam had discounted it as just another bogus claim.

  Maybe the man had possessed more knowledge than Adam had thought. Maybe, like Bobbie, that man had some kind of ancestral association to the source of Adam’s powers. But if Bobbie did have nascent powers that he had awakened by joining with her, did that present a risk to his secrets? Or worse, would it endanger Bobbie’s life, if she was not working with the men who had attacked them?

  His stomach clenched again and he pressed a fist to it. There was only one way he could think of to end his disquiet.

  The Light Hunter sat on the boardwalk railing across from the home of the man his Quinchus called Kikin. Their son, Kikin.

  They had charged him with guarding the man and imbued him with an extra dose of their power so that he might maintain his guise for the better part of the night.

  As Kikin pulled away from his home in his car, heading northward, the Hunter leaped into the air and with a flap of his wings followed the Bentley convertible.

  It had been a long time since he had morphed, and it took all his willpower to focus on the man rather than the sights beneath him. Or on the uplift of a gust of air that made the animal spirit within him want to soar and glide with the currents.

  He dropped out of the updraft and flapped his wings, pushing himself to keep the car in sight, not that it was difficult to do. The convertible was unique enough to track even from a distance, especially with the top down, which provided a clear view of Kikin and his unique royal blue aura behind the wheel.

  He continued to follow and somehow managed to catch a fast-moving current that sent him racing forward, directly above and just beyond his target.

  Looking back at his Quinchus’ son, it seemed to him that Kikin appeared troubled. A deep ridge marred his forehead and his jaw was set in harsh lines.

  The strong current pushed the hunter ever ahead, and he had to adjust his wings to fly upward, out of the rush of air, and then swoop back down to keep pace with the car.

  The pursuit was taxing, draining his energy as he maintained his Hunter awareness while battling the bird’s instincts and driving himself physically. There was a heaviness growing in the pit of his belly that said he might not be able to hold this form much longer.

  Up ahead the bright neon sign of a restaurant snared his bird’s-eye view, and as he lifted his head, he caught sight of the bright blue aura in another convertible a few blocks beyond the restaurant.

  The Shadow woman, he thought.

  Gliding upward and back for just a moment to confirm that Kikin was heading in the same direction, he pushed forward, following the woman, her aura an intense beacon in the night.

  Within a few blocks she turned off Main Avenue and into a village filled with well-kept Victorian homes. It was a little harder to follow here with the proximity of the homes and the tree-lined streets that hid the passage of her car, providing only occasional glimpses of her beneath the copious foliage.

  He pushed upward, hoping that additional height might give him a better view.

  It did.

  He tracked her as she drove to the edge of town and then onto the avenue along the ocean. Dive-bombing down, he pursued more closely, just feet above her, until she pulled to the curb and parked.

  Settling onto the electrical wires by her car, he watched. The bird’s keen-eyed sight enabled him to see much more than he could have as a Hunter. Enough to see the woman head to a row of mailboxes by the main entrance to the building, where she slipped her key into a slot.

  Carrera; 301.

  It was all he needed to know, he thought, as the woman walked into the building. Although he had defied his Quinchus’ orders by following the woman, he didn’t think that they would be disappointed with the information he would provide from his detour. The woman was a risk that had to be handled, and now they were one step closer to dealing with her.

  He was about to fly off when he noticed Kikin’s car pulling into a spot before the building, but his Quinchus’ son remained in the seat. His aura deepened, and the threads of silver and red jumped wildly, a testament to his discomfiture. Even if his aura had not given away his upset, it would have been evident from the way his knuckles had turned white from his grip on the steering wheel.

  Kikin sat in the car for a few minutes, clearly torn, until he finally pulled away again. With a flap of his wings, the Light Hunter followed. Another cadre member would soon be relieving him, and when he did, he could provide the woman’s location to his Quinchus.

  Bobbie had been puzzling all day about the information she had gleaned by tailing Salvatore. Adam’s father clearly saw her as a problem, but she didn’t know why. The references to an Equinox made little sense to her, and even after returning home to do research on the Net, she was no closer to understanding what the two men had been discussing.

  But she was sure of a few things, she thought as she got changed for bed. Salvatore was lying to Adam, probably because he wanted to get his son together with this Maya person, whoever she was—judging from the conversation, a woman with whom Adam was to bind his power only…

  Bobbie thought it was a little too late for that. Since yesterday’s lovemaking she had felt different. Connected not only to Adam, but to so many things around her. It was as if she had been living with blinders on and someone had just ripped them off, exposing her to a world that was filled with more than she had ever thought possible.

  Including a link to Adam that was difficult to ignore. She had sensed his anger all day long. Felt his presence right outside her building earlier that night. By the time she had gone to the window to double-check, the only thing she had seen was the taillights of his car as he had driven away, obviously having reconsidered the wisdom of seeing her when there was still so much uncertainty between them.

  Climbing into bed, she shut off the lights and forced herself to try to sleep. She needed a clear head if she was going to make sense of what Salvatore was up to and figure out how to convince Adam of it without breaking his heart.

  Salvatore might not be Adam’s biological father, but she was sure that Adam loved and respected him. He was hurting over the possibility that Salvatore might not be what Adam had thought for so many years.

  She closed her eyes, willing her mind to put away all thought so she could rest. But barely minutes later she heard a noise. It was slight, only a hint of a footfall, but her soldier’s instincts kicked into high gear.

  Bobbie tossed off the sheets and came to her fe
et in a fighting stance, the swift action taxing her damaged leg and delivering pain throughout her thigh before a blow ever landed. In the shadows before her, close to the balcony doors off the bedroom, stood a woman.

  “Who are you?” she said, fists raised defensively, legs spread wide in anticipation. Not that she was sure she could launch a kick as effectively as she could before, but it wouldn’t stop her from trying if it was needed.

  “I’m Kikin’s mother,” the woman said, and took a step closer, into a beam of moonlight that illuminated her features, revealing the elegant lines of her face.

  Achingly familiar lines, Bobbie thought, but maintained her guard.

  “Who the hell is Kikin?” she asked, although she knew the answer even before it was provided.

  “The man you know as Adam Bruno,” the woman replied, and then stretched out her arm. A glow began in her palm, reminding Bobbie of the attackers who had blasted her. If this woman let loose at this distance, Bobbie would be toast.

  Only the woman surprised her by saying, “May I provide us some light?”

  As before, the answer came before she could respond. The orb doubled in size, its glow spreading, bathing the woman’s face in bright red-gold light.

  There was no denying the similarity then between her and Adam. It was there in the shape of their eyes, nose, and mouth. Even down to the thumbprint-sized cleft in her chin. But unlike Adam, the woman’s hair was darker, although marked with gray, and her eyes were a slate color, lacking the life of Adam’s marvelous emerald gaze.

  “How about we go traditional light?” Bobbie said, relaxing her stance only long enough to flip on the lamp beside her bed.

  The woman immediately cut off her display of power and dropped her arm, an encouraging sign. Maybe she didn’t want to turn Bobbie into a crispy critter.

  “How did you get in here?”

  The woman pointed to the floor beside her. Light snaked along the ground and then slowly formed into three balls lined up uniformly at her feet, almost militarily neat. Unnaturally still at first, and then suddenly one ball grew larger, elongated, and filled out into the shape of a man. The other balls immediately followed suit. In less than a minute, Bobbie found herself staring at not one, but four individuals.