The Soul Stealer (7 page)

“So you’d rather feel nothing at all?”

“Yes! I’m used to that. And it’s a lot less painful.”

“That’s sad. You’re much more than that,” Hunter said with a shake of his head. He held out his hand and waited for her to take it.

“Please go away,” she said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice. The way she wanted Hunter was dangerous and terrifying. Pushing him away seemed the quickest way to solve that problem.

“Okay, I’ll leave, if you want me to, if this is too much for you.” Hunter stood there for a moment, waiting, and then he turned and walked out the door.

The slam of the screen door made her want to run after him. Watching him leave that way felt like the end of any chance of happiness, ever. Malia slumped into a nearby chair, shocked that her emotions now seemed tied to a total stranger. It wasn’t like her to let someone get through the brick wall surrounding her heart. She blinked, wanting to put Hunter out of her thoughts, and her life. Somehow, she had to get to Waikiki to pick up her car, but she couldn’t move enough to call Lani. The clock on the wall told her to get motivated or she would be late for dinner with Ryan Green.

Where had Hunter gone? Malia wondered why she cared as she looked around the empty room.

H
unter traveled as fast as he could, wanting to put distance between Malia and him. It was wrong. It was all wrong. How had she resisted his elixir so completely? It didn’t seem possible because he had used his best incantation, and slipped a drop of the potion in her beer. It was supposed to make her want him, but all it had done was heighten Malia’s desire for beer. He shook his head in frustration, which made the course of his flight erratic. If only he understood magic better.

And, hurting her was becoming a distasteful intention. He couldn’t avoid it, though, if he did as his father wanted. He wouldn’t go home like a dog with its tail between its legs, so his best alternative was to run away and hope they’d never find him. He could stay ahead of his father’s minions for a long time—years maybe. It was possible, he told himself as the wind rushed around his body and pulled him in all sorts of directions.

The force of speed tied his insides in knots and plastered the skin against his skull. Hunter had no destination in mind. He flew directionless, in danger of spiraling out of control. He didn’t care. The darkness of the night sky engulfed him like a shroud of bleak eternity, which was what he deserved for all his past crimes, and it was what he might now have without Malia.

Hunter couldn’t believe she was actually going out with another man. Who was this guy? He shouldn’t indulge his jealousy too long or it would cause a destructive force that could destroy everything in his path.

After he’d left Malia, he’d waited in the studio, hoping she would walk in and tell him she had canceled her dinner plans. Instead, he watched her leave the house with Lani to pick up the car. She had looked incredible! As he’d looked out from the shadows watching her leave, he longed for her and wanted to follow her. But if he had, jealousy would’ve gotten the best of him, and that would be destructive for everyone.

The nerve of her, doubting they should be together. She had too many doubts. He hadn’t expected that. It was ludicrous to even imagine they didn’t belong together. Hunter laughed out loud. He didn’t care where he went, as long as it was away from her. He had used his best enchantment and failed. She had rejected him—something he hadn’t anticipated. He had no plan for that. His plan was to capture her and then go home. Falling in love with her was not a part of the plan. Love opened too many strange and mysterious doors, and created wild thoughts of rebellion against his father, something he had never considered before.

He didn’t blame Malia for rejecting him, though. She was much too good for the likes of him and would be better off without him. He would be just some odd guy who came into her life for a few days and then disappeared—a memory. It tore at his heart to think she could so easily forget him, even though it would be better for her if she did.

Then Hunter’s heart almost stopped as a terrifying realization hit home. If he went into hiding, they wouldn’t try to find him. Instead, they would go after Malia, use her as bait to draw him out. He put her in danger by fleeing.

Hunter froze, suspending himself in time and space. A murderous rage began to fire through his body at the thought of any of those savages near his own beautiful girl. He turned around toward the Pacific Ocean. He would have to go back and try harder to make her love him, even if he had to do it without magic. And if he didn’t succeed, at least he would be near enough to protect her. He wouldn’t let them hurt Malia. It was better for her to die in his arms than at the hands of cruel strangers.

It took no time at all to arrive back in Hawaii. All he had to do was concentrate on Malia’s house, and he was there. Hunter touched down at the bottom of the stairs, knowing it would seem an eternity until she returned. He sat down in the dark on the first step and tried to calm down to regain a composed mask of patience—one that looked more human. His rage had increased the sparkles in his skin, and the glitter was starting to seep from every pore. But if he calmed down, his skin would be back to human form before Malia got home.

Malia wanted to enjoy dinner with Ryan Green, but it was difficult to focus on him, or their conversation. All she could think about was Hunter. She smiled at Ryan, nodded her head when appropriate, and asked the usual first-date kind of questions, but inside her heart begged her to run from the restaurant to find the man who had captivated her before they even met. Malia took a deep breath and looked at the menu—a much safer, and saner, course of action. She looked around the traditionally decorated steakhouse, surprised she didn’t see anyone she knew since it was a favorite restaurant among local residents.

Ryan was doing his best to charm her, and it was working—to an extent. Malia smiled as she listened to his tales of growing up in a rough neighborhood in Chicago, and how he had come to Hawaii to learn to surf one summer. Originally Ryan had no intention of staying, but now, after ten years, he didn’t think he would ever leave.

“And people in the police department have accepted you, even though you’re not from here?” Malia asked.

“For the most part,” he replied with an easy smile.

The waitress came over and opened a bottle of red wine, and then poured them each a glass. Malia vowed not to repeat last night’s binge. She still didn’t understand what had gotten into her, but yesterday had been a strange day. It had been a strange couple of days, actually.

“You seem lost in thought,” Ryan said.

“Oh, I was just thinking about the last few days,” she said with a small shrug. “I haven’t thought about my mother’s death in a long time, and now I can’t get it out of my mind. Have there been any changes in that woman’s murder?”

“No, not really. There aren’t any solid leads,” Ryan said. He looked away for a moment and then back to Malia with a question in his eyes. “Do you really want to talk about this?”

“Yes, if there’s more to hear.”

He hesitated for a moment. “Well, we have uncovered similar murders on the mainland that occurred over the last decade, or so.”

“Do you think it’s a serial killer?”

“No, not one killer, no.”

“Please, tell me what you know.”

The waitress came to the table and set the plates of food down. Malia and Ryan looked at each other, waiting until she left. Ryan smiled at the waitress when she asked if they needed anything else. Malia’s world stopped. She wanted to yell at the girl to just go away.

When they were alone again, Ryan said with a shake of his head, “It might be some sort of cult thing.” He started to cut the thick steak on his plate.

Malia tried to keep the alarm out of her voice. “Cult thing?”

“Ritualistic murders of some sort, done by the same group of people, but not any one particular person. All the weapons are slightly different, none have fingerprints or DNA that anyone can identify, but all the murders have striking similarities.”

Spots formed before her eyes. She didn’t want to think about what her mother had gone through in the last moments of her life, but Malia had to know after all these years of wondering. “Like what?”

“Really, let’s not talk about this.”

Malia could feel the color draining from her face. “I need to know.”

Ryan hesitated for a moment, and then put down his fork. His eyes met Malia’s. “The victims have their hands tied behind their backs and are made to kneel. A cloth is tied from their hands to around their ankles, so they can’t escape. The cloths used on each victim had special markings, an emblem almost like a tribal shield or family crest of some sort. Someone comes up behind the victim, probably grabs their hair and slits their throat so deeply with one motion that their head comes off. The metal of the knife isn’t anything we can identify. It’s so sharp and hard it cuts right through flesh and bone without much effort, and it seems to burn the flesh. The wound is cauterized so there’s barely any blood at the scene, and the head is always missing. The same circular symbol that’s on the cloth is carved into one palm of the victim’s hand, and there is an incision made over the victim’s heart in a jagged line. None of the departments in each district of the murders has been able to get any farther than we are in identifying a suspect or a murder weapon.”

Malia gulped, hoping some feeling would come back to her body. She concentrated on Ryan’s face, wanting the image of her mother’s headless body to go away, and tried to loosen the grip she had on the edge of the table. She felt numb.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said with concern on his face. “We shouldn’t talk about this. I shouldn’t have gone into so much detail.”

Malia swallowed and then took a huge drink of water to wet the desert in her throat. She looked down at the beef ribs on her plate, wanting to focus on her empty stomach, but she couldn’t. “So there’s some sort of satanic cult in Hawaii doing ritualistic murders, and my mother was one of their victims?”

“Not Satanic, necessarily, and we really don’t know what happened to your mother.”

“But it fits with the rest of the murders.” She was afraid she might be shouting but wasn’t really sure. Her heart pounded in her ears.

“It was a similar homicide so it sort of fits, but there’s no hard evidence to prove the same killers murdered your mother,” Ryan said in a serious tone. “Please be careful, and let me know if you encounter anyone unusual or threatening in any way.”

Malia’s eyes snapped up from her plate to meet his. “Why? Do you think they’ll be after me because they killed my mother?”

“No,” Ryan said with a shake of his head. “I don’t mean to imply that at all. I’m sure whoever the killers are, they pick their victims at random, because there is no connection that we can find. I just want you to be careful, that’s all I’m saying.”

Malia was shaking too much to pick up the fork to eat, so she excused herself. She went to the single-person restroom and locked the door. Unbuttoning her blouse, she looked at her chest in the mirror. It was still there, as she knew it would be; after all, the thin jagged scar above her heart had been there all her life. She didn’t know how she had gotten it, and her mother and father didn’t seem to remember any sort of incident in her childhood to cause such a mark. When she was very upset, it throbbed, as it was now doing.

Malia threw up what little was in her stomach. Sweat came out in beads on her forehead, so she wet a paper towel and wiped her face to look presentable again. Then she crouched down on the tile floor for a moment, hoping the spots before her eyes would go away. A knock on the door signaled someone was waiting outside, so Malia stood. As the color returned to her face, she summoned the courage to put on a smile and went back to the table as if everything was fine.

Dinner with Ryan was silent and awkward after that, and Malia just wanted to leave. Apparently it showed, because Ryan paid the check before he finished eating and walked her to the car. He offered to follow her home to make sure she was okay, but she refused, not wanting to feel obligated to him at her doorstep.

Malia shook as she drove home from the restaurant, and the hair on her neck felt electric. Once, while stopped at a red light, she turned to make sure no one was hiding in the shadows of the backseat of her car. When she pulled into the driveway and noticed that the neighbors on both sides were home and watching television, some feeling of comfort and security returned. She glanced toward the studio as she passed by, hoping to see a light through the small window, but there was only darkness inside.

She froze at the bottom of the stairs. There he was, framed in the light from the porch. She couldn’t tell what was in his eyes. He stood there with his hands in the pockets of his black jeans, white shirttails hung around his slim hips, his leather bag slung over one shoulder. Hunter’s hair was wild, as if he had been wringing his fingers through it for hours. Malia bit her lip, hoping he would say something soon so she could gauge his mood.

“I put the rent money on the kitchen table,” he said, pointing to the house. “The door was unlocked, so I didn’t think you’d mind if I went in.”

His voice was soft, seductive. Her heart pounded too loudly in her ears as she looked up to where he stood at the top of the stairs.

“You really shouldn’t do that—leave your door unlocked. You need to be more careful.”

Malia ran up the stairs, wanting to be close to the one person who made her feel alive. She threw her arms around him. Hunter had to take a step back on the landing from the force of her sudden embrace, but he held onto her with a tight grasp and then crushed her in his arms. He smelled so wonderful, and the warmth of his body felt even better. Malia couldn’t let go for fear he would disappear again.

“You’re trembling. What’s wrong?” Hunter asked as his arms tightened around her. “Who were you with? Did he do something to you?” The anger rose in his voice.

She shook her head, but sobs took over, so she couldn’t answer.

Hunter took her face in his hands and tried to look into her eyes, but the heavy shadows from the porch light prevented it. “I want to know if someone hurt you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Malia managed to say. “I got scared by something he told me, that’s all. But mostly I was afraid you wouldn’t come back after this morning.”

Hunter brushed his lips against hers in a breathless whisper of a kiss and then put his forehead down so it touched hers. His hand was still on her cheek.

“Stay. I want you to stay,” she said, wanting to feel his arms around her, and his lips on every part of her body. The thought of it made her weak. Nothing before had ever been like this. His ragged breath on her face told Malia he wanted her as much, yet he hesitated. She took his hand and pulled him into her house.

Malia flipped on the light and looked into his luminous violet eyes. Hunter didn’t hide his desire. It showed in every line of his face and gesture of his body as he took her in his arms and possessed her mouth with his own. She could feel the pounding pulse of his heart as the muscles of his chest crushed into hers. His hands went down around her waist, as Malia’s arms went around his strong shoulders. It was perfect—the most perfect kiss she had ever experienced. Her knees went weak, and she had to consciously suppress a moan as the heat swelled within her body, needing release.