“Do you think I'm her?” Alexandra asked him, glancing at her pale reflection in the tinted window.
Gently lifting her chin to his blazing blue eyes, Callahan squinted at her worried face. “He does,” Callahan said. “Kraven believes you are his bride finally returned. Perhaps you are. If a spirit is strong enough,” he continued, “it lives on after death.”
Inside the store, Benjamin filled his arms with potato chips and chocolate candy bars. Staring at a display of fireworks stacked in the middle of the floor, he glanced through the store windows at the Mustang. “Well isn't that cozy,” he muttered to himself, watching Callahan lean into Alexandra's ear.
“You really believe that?” Alexandra asked softly.
“Yes, my dear, I do. But death itself is a subject with which I am more familiar. I'm a hunter,” Callahan told Alexandra. “I kill. I protect. The Order of the Dragon King does not care if I believe in ghosts, demons, shapeshifters, or whatever manner of mayhem they send me to investigate.”
“Do you?” Alexandra asked in a hushed whisper.
“Yes,” he said firmly.
“Jasmine,” Alexandra slowly said the name of the witch. “She thinks Kraven is the devil.”
“And he's not?” Callahan asked, patting the small of Alexandra's back. The journal rested firmly in her waistband.
“No,” Alexandra said, shaking her head. “But she could use him, all the same.”
“Will you give her the book?” Callahan asked, brushing his hair behind his ears as the tread of Benjamin and Taylor drew closer.
“Yes,” Alexandra said. “But she will have to give me something in return.”
Callahan smirked. “I like you, Miss Peyton.”
“I like her, too,” Taylor said, winking as she strolled to the passenger door.
Climbing into the back seat, Alexandra let Jack snuggle in her lap. Benjamin shied from her eyes and huddled deep into his bucket seat, three plastic bags of snacks secure around him.
“Gimme,” Taylor said, shoving a hand into the back seat while Callahan cranked the engine.
“Here,” Benjamin said, reluctantly tossing her a pack of cigarettes.
Rolling down her window, Taylor dug for a lighter in her handbag.
“What else you got?” Alexandra asked, rustling her prying fingers through the snacks.
“Where's my lighter?” Taylor asked.
“Maybe that's not a good idea right now,” Benjamin said to Taylor, revealing a handful of bottle rockets from inside one of the plastic bags. “Sparks,” he explained, as the Mustang roared back toward the interstate.
“I'm going to hurt you, Benjamin Lawson,” Taylor promised.
Staring through the windshield, Alexandra squeezed Callahan's shoulder. “Hurry,” she said.
24
Long Way to Go, Short Time to Get There
Sharp and maddening, the piercing cries Kraven heard in his skull muted the bustle of the urban chaos around him. Untamed and unbroken, the spirit of the dragon within him stirred and snapped at his own soul. They had wrestled within him for centuries, his body and mind a battleground for a never-ending war between the sacred and the profane.
Am I a man, part of everyday humanity?
he asked himself.
Or am I a forbidden monster, not part of this world?
He knew that it was not simply a matter of good and evil, for these elements could be found in both the sacred and the profane.
Standing alone on the sidewalk across the street from Park View Tower, Kraven allowed the Mustang to leave without him. He dared not stop them. Alexandra was safe for the moment with her companions.
Safe for now
, he thought.
A smoggy haze filtered the sun's dying light as dusk fell upon the city. Kraven stared solemnly after the red taillights of the Mustang as they crawled farther from view through the snarled evening traffic.
He did not have to see Alexandra, stand close to her, or touch her, to know her thoughts.
She is afraid
, he thought,
but not of me.
Her spirit called to him. Kraven felt her voice tremble within the fiber of his heart and ripple through the layers of his soul.
Her voice rang in his ears.
In the Mustang starting on its way to Peyton Manor, she had called his name, though she could not see him. She had put her head on Ben's tensed shoulder and fallen into a deep sleep, the raven-haired stranger's name on her lips.
“Destiny,” Callahan had mumbled to himself behind the wheel, his eyes darting back and forth from Kraven on the sidewalk, visible in his rearview mirror, to the signposts pointing to the interstate.
Alone on the sidewalk, watching them leave, Kraven willed his legs to remain planted on the walkway, as solid and immovable as the stoic trees in the park around him. He wanted to run to her, to fly to her side. But he knew that she did not need him as much as he needed her.
If the beast has escaped, Kraven reasoned, then he has returned to the witch, his mistress. They will make a stand. They will fight together until the end.
He took one step forward and then another. He knew he could still catch the Mustang if he ran.
No
, he scolded himself. Along his spine shivered a tremor of anticipation.
Not yet. Soon.
His shoulder blades rippled as he stared up past the high-rise splattered Atlanta skyline to the last rays of the day's light.
“Hey,” a voice yelled behind him. “Hey,” she said again, her shrill call punctuated by the blare of her car horn.
“Me?” Kraven mouthed at the platinum blonde in the red Hummer, his thumb gesturing to his chest.
Leaning over the window sill of her parked car, Krystal Woodward winked bashfully and waved the raven-haired stranger toward her. “Yes, you,” she squealed and pouted her lips until he approached.
Krystal had not been awake for long. Rummaging for the tin of mints she kept in the glove box, she popped a handful of the breath-savers into her dry mouth, her teeth cracking through the candy and spilling a fresh tang over her tongue.
Inside her head, her brain ached as if it were swelling against the prison of bone. Her nap had helped, though, to flush the dizziness, and the memory of dropping Taylor onto the street flashed into her rousing consciousness.
When she had left Taylor at the curb in front of Park View Tower, Krystal had felt lightheaded, the whirl of city traffic spinning around her drooping eyes. She knew Taylor had not seen her drive a bit farther, park down the street, and roll down her window to watch. Taylor had been too preoccupied talking to a stranger, a tall, black-haired man in camouflage pants and a faded black t-shirt.
Krystal was intensely curious as to why her stepdaughter spoke to the stranger with obvious familiarity and eagerness. This interest kept Krystal's drowsy eyes on the pair until Kraven scooped Taylor into his arms so they could cross the street to Park View Tower. At that point, Krystal could not fight the grip of unconsciousness tipping her chest toward the steering wheel of her Hummer. Passed out behind deeply tinted windows, Krystal slept undisturbed for hours. Eventually, she shook awake in a tremor.
Gasping for air, she rolled down the other windows and panted for fresh air. No one noticed her until she called to him, the dark-haired stranger she had seen hours before with Taylor.
Hot mess
, she said, evaluating herself in the rearview mirror as Kraven approached. Rubbing the smudged mascara from the tops of her cheeks, she ignored the cell phone ringing on the passenger seat beside her.
“Dr. Do Little,” she read on the screen. She combed her fingernails through the length of her flat-ironed platinum strands and rolled her eyes.
Kraven regarded the woman in the Hummer with shameful interest. Her heart raced too fast. He could hear her heart pounding in her chest. Heart-shaped lines framed her pretty, smooth face. Her perfect skin shone translucent and glowing under the streetlights. But as he stared closer, the skin peeled from her bones, and he saw the truth.
Hollow
, he thought to himself.
She smiled wide at him.
In the passenger seat, her cell phone rang again. “Leave me alone,” Krystal stammered, but she finally tapped a button on the keypad and raised the phone to her ear. “Hello, honey,” she squealed.
Dr. Woodward did not answer.
“Hello,” Krystal said into the phone, frowning. Her husband's laugh rang in her ear, while the distinct clink of wine glasses chimed under his voice.
Krystal heard a woman's voice say her husband's name.
Slamming the phone into the dashboard, she ended the call, fuming. “How dare you!” she said, furious.
Kraven winced as her screech stung his ears. Inside the Hummer, Krystal snatched the phone from the top of the dash and called her husband's cell phone number. One ring. Two rings. She tapped her fingernails against the dashboard. Three rings. Voicemail.
She dialed the number again. One ring. Two rings. She squeezed the phone in her fists. Three rings. Voicemail.
A primal yell echoed from inside the car while she pounded the floor with her spiked, heeled sandals.
The cell phone clenched in her fist rang once, then twice.
“Hello,” she calmly cooed.
“You called?” Jim greeted his angry, young wife.
“You called me,” Krystal explained. “I was calling you back, sweetheart.”
“I didn't call you,” Jim said as his dinner companion excused herself to the restroom.
“Then I guess your butt dialed me,” Krystal hissed. “I heard you. Who are you with, Jim?”
Sipping his glass of iced tea, Jim scanned his menu. “Angela Peyton,” he finally explained. “She's here in Miami on business also.”
Krystal dug her nails into the steering wheel. She knew Angela Peyton was beautiful and brilliant.
“Maybe I could come down there with you?” Krystal suggested.
“Krystal, don't,” said her husband, the sound of a chair scraping a floor punctuating his hesitation. “We'll talk later,” he said and ended the call.
“Yes, we will,” Krystal promised her husband after he hung up on her. Dropping her cell phone in her lap, she snatched red lip gloss from its perch in a cup holder under her elbow and smothered her grin in glistening lacquer. Puckering her lips, she kissed the air and tossed her platinum blonde locks over her shoulder as her eyes met Kraven's curious stare.
“Do I know you?” she asked Kraven. She squinted at his face in the dim glow of the overhead streetlight.
“No,” Kraven told her, shaking his head, his raven mane falling across his face.
“I saw you talking to Taylor,” Krystal remembered. Kraven nodded and strode closer, his hip leaning against the driver's door of the Hummer as he folded his arms across his chest. “Yes,” he told Krystal as she wilted under his gaze.
“Woo,” she said, rubbing the sweat from her collarbone with the back of her hand. “Sure is muggy tonight,” she said, a wave of heat lapping against her skin as Kraven stood closer.
Silly woman
, he thought, his eyes boring into her pretty face long enough to see the image running through her head. Blinking, he rubbed his forehead. The roar of an airplane echoed in his ears, as loud as if he stood on the runway. The jet soared into the night sky.
“Are you looking for Taylor?” Kraven asked.
Krystal batted her mascara-caked lashes. “No,” she admitted, a smile broadening across her lips. “I need to get going,” she said, turning the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life, and she turned on the air. Cranking the air conditioning to high reminded her of the icy reception her husband had given her on the cell phone.
“You need a ride?” she asked the stranger leaning on her Hummer. Kraven shoved his long, raven hair behind his ears and clenched his sturdy jaw. “Please say yes,” she whispered to herself.
Smirking, Kraven nodded his head yes. “I need to go to the airport,” he confided, deciding that he needed a way to have a clear take-off, unnoticed.
“That's where I'm headed,” Krystal said, patting the empty leather passenger seat beside her. “Get in.”
Hesitation seized his tongue as Kraven studied the temptation.
“I don't bite,” Krystal told him. “Let's go.”
“Is that a threat?” Kraven asked, opening the passenger door. “Or an invitation?” he inquired sheepishly, sprawling into the seat beside her.
As he settled on the edge of the seat, Kraven wrapped his arms across his chest, his gaze focused steadily on the windshield.
“Relax,” Krystal told him and patted his knee. Her hand recoiled, the withdrawal of her palm a reflex to the searing heat of his body.
Krystal kept silent and turned the air conditioning vents on the dash toward her flushed cheeks. Beside her, Kraven eased his back into the seat, his eyes drawn to the bare arms of Krystal's rail-thin body. Goosebumps sprouted across her flesh.
Winding her way through traffic, Krystal concentrated on the plan forming in her head:
Fly to Miami. Surprise my husband. Go shopping.
Kraven finally spoke. “How do you know Alexandra's friend?” he asked her as the Hummer glided through traffic. He already knew the answer.
“Who?” asked Krystal, confusion wrinkling her smooth forehead. She smelled smoke, but not cigarette smoke or diesel smoke. It was not smoke like some electrical wire or hose had popped loose under the hood and had started a fire. She smelled fireplace smoke, the kind that used to blaze in the iron woodstove in her grandparents' living room during the winter.
“Taylor,” Kraven explained. He wondered if the soul inside the body next to him could be as evil in depth as she was beautiful in the flesh.
“My stepdaughter,” Krystal spat with contempt. Kraven shivered, recoiling at her venom. “How do you know Taylor?” she asked, scouring his blank face. “You two looked awfully well acquainted this afternoon.”
“I, too, am a friend of Alexandra's,” Kraven explained.