Wicked Hunt (Dark Hearts Book 3) (3 page)

Mavros

“We missed her, again. The closest yet.” I leaned on the metal railing and stared across the river. Like leaking watercolors, lights from the bridge and buildings dribbled into the dark glasslike surface of the Rhine. A frigid wind buffeted us, whining as it swept past.

Grimm grunted and bent over the railing. His gloved fists clenched and unclenched on the top rail. The man was agitated more than I’d seen him in a while, but he stayed quiet.

“The app has never tracked well. I’ve spoken to my IT guy and he’s going to try optimizing it.”

“About fucking time. It’s been four months. I
need
to find her.” The last was muttered into the night, as if he barely recalled I was beside him.

“Need?” I raised an amused brow, knowing he wouldn’t see. “You’re a mesmer. What you need is sex.”

He swung his head, staring at me. “With some anonymous acquired woman? No.”

Mesmers didn’t get this focused on one woman. It was unnatural. I almost laughed aloud at that thought. “Only Zorie?”

I knew why. Grimm was in love. Love was such a weird notion.

“You know it. We were within yards of her, over there.” He flicked a finger, extending it toward the brilliant jewel-like peaks and spires of the cathedral. The hood of his anorak hid much of his face with night-time shadow.

“This new hack will cut down lag time. We’ve been piggy-backing on the original app all these months.”

“Why the hell did you wait?”

“It might expose our program hack. Then we’ll lose it and her forever. No links at all, just detective work to try to trace her.”

“And you never asked me if you should do this?” He spoke through his hands as he smeared them over his face, then he held out his arms and stared at the backs of his hands.

“You’re not my nanny, Grimm. It’s a risk I wanted to take. She’s going to go down in a screaming heap soon. She can’t keep killing forever and ever without being caught.”

“So. I guess you care for her too,” he mumbled.

Then I noticed what he had – his hands were trembling. Was he losing the mesmer infection again? If he was, he’d likely never get it back again.

“Do you think it’s you-know-what? The infection. It’s been happening for days. Getting worse. Fuck it.”

I shook my head, hunched my shoulders to try to hide deeper in my coat as the wind picked up. “I don’t know.” It’d been so many months that it seemed unlikely but there was no point in saying it. It wasn’t fact.

“Let’s get back to the hotel. My balls are freezing off, as well as my hands. Good to see you again though, Mavros.” He shot me a sidelong glance as we set off walking on the wide pathway beside the tree-lined Prachtstraße. “You’ve never said what’s keeping you doing this. Months and months of chasing her over Europe. You’re financing this and you’ve gone back to your practice a few times, but you always return.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and went on a few more paces. When I didn’t reply he stopped and faced me. “Spit it out. Why?”

Too many questions. I tried to keep my glare at low heat.

None of his business? Untrue.

“I want her too. Of course. You forgot that?”

“What happens when we find her?”

I smiled, and strangely it wasn’t a hostile smile. I was looking forward to the day, even to facing off with Grimm. “Toss you for her. Heads or tails?”

The silence stretched, transformed slowly into some sort of mutual contemplative assessment.

“Good question,” he said, wryly.

I held my tongue on my, almost, automatic riposte:
Or both.
“When the time comes, we can figure this out.”

“Yeah. We will.” His smile was a little harder than mine. “We will.”

Grimm was a possessive asshole, but so was I.

If he stopped being a mesmer, I’d almost be sorry. Without that, of course, he had a snowball’s chance in Hell of keeping Zorie.

There was something he should’ve done long ago. “Have you ever told her about your stepbrother?”

The jerk in his next stride gave away his anxiety, or surprise, one of those. I was sure I could feel shock radiating from him.

He kept walking. “How’d you find that out?”

My shrug probably wasn’t seen. “Research. I had to dig up all your skeletons when you ended up with us in Greece. So you haven’t told her?”

“No.” More walking. “If you use that to –”

“I wouldn’t. I never play that dirty unless I detest the man. I respect you. I think you respect me, no matter our other problems with each other.”

“Uh-huh. Thanks. So why mention it?”

“Tell her. When we catch her. It’s best to get it done.”

He didn’t answer. This was his Achilles heel and I’d handed the secret over.

I’d only spoken my mind and the truth. He’d see that eventually.

“I won’t tell her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Same as you didn’t tell her about the knife you were sticking in her vagina?”

It was my turn to falter in my step. “You don’t believe me?”

Brown leaves swirled up and spattered us.

He stopped and eyed me, hands still hidden in his pockets. “I believe you. Just not sure she will forgive you.”

Touché.

Grimm was trying to get one-up on me. He didn’t understand. I’d mentioned his stepbrother to help him. Though even I wasn’t sure why my thoughts had led me there, it’d made me feel good.

I wasn’t chasing Zorie just to take her from Grimm. I needed to atone for making her exact my revenge and for Grimm’s injuries too. Maybe some other things. Things that hung around at the edges of my brain that I couldn’t decipher and pin down.

I must be getting old.

Zorie

I had to leave soon. Staying in Cologne was bad for my health, but this woman had internet and the urge had taken me. I’d sent her out to wander the shops for a few hours.

Tumblr. My craving, my curse.

It was the best substitute for unencumbered sex I dared to play with. On Tumblr I could find almost anything. Videos, pics, women having it off with one man, two, while tied up, upside down, dressed as a furry bear even. That one had made me laugh, though I guess to each their own.

Forced sex, even when simulated, it grabbed hold of me some nights.

I’d watch, mesmerized.
Haha.
The word was so apt. Wide-eyed, unblinking. My eyes almost turned to dust.

I had to try. As always, I could never get off. That was the curse. Turned on to the most extreme level but the mesmer thing ensured I couldn’t reach climax.

So here I was again. Hand worn out, fingers numb, clit numb, my panties soaked.

At least I hadn’t descended to the depths and used her vibe.

I turned off her laptop and sat back exhausted.

Time to move on.

I showered, dressed, found all my gear and left, locking her door behind me.

The airport would have a new victim for me, a new ID.

Where would the tickets take me this time? Hopefully, India.

Zorie

Mumbai had to win a prize as the smelliest city I’d ever been in. India had called me, mainly because the man who’d owned Cherie had lived here, once upon a time. Or so Einar had told me before he’d died. Truly, my search for her owner had been pretty fruitless. Most of what Einar had said was false or distorted somehow. The flash drive I’d plugged into their computer had downloaded some encrypted mishmash that nobody seemed able to unencrypt. Not that I’d had the time or freedom to seek out the best way to unencrypt anything.

Some days I wished I had Mavros’s resources.

Some days my mesmer-awoken sex drive came roaring in so hard and fast I spent an hour or two trying to get off in whatever hotel room I occupied. Knowing I couldn’t make myself an
O
didn’t stop me trying.

Fuck mesmers.

I leaned against the taxi’s passenger door and half-closed my eyes, thinking, imagining. Fuck them. Especially the one called Grimm. And the other one.

Some nights, Mavros visited my lustful toss-and-turn dreams. I smiled, remembering how I nearly got that
O
a few times, by concentrating on them, on what they’d once done to me...in bed, on that sofa, against that wall. Oh yeah, that wall. The rocking of the cab and the stop-start as it negotiated the honking, rumbling, screeching traffic...even the heat of this city, none of those diverted my longings.

I
really
damn-well needed to fuck someone. Beneath the sari I wore, I squeezed my thighs together and almost sighed aloud at the surge of pleasure. I let that sigh stick in my throat, and closed my eyes completely. No...to
be
fucked would be best. By a mesmer, by the very same sort of men I meant to kill.

Months ago I would’ve been angry and ashamed by my fantasies.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

Even that made me think of tangled bed sheets, sweaty and wrapped around me as Grimm kissed me hard and held me down, while Mavros fucked me at the other end.

Fuck.

That time I did sigh aloud.

My cab driver only shouted out his wound-down window and shook his fist at some offending driver.

I shifted on my seat, all too aware of my now damp underwear.

I hadn’t noticed the delightful smell of Mumbai much today. I must be getting used to it.

Then I sat up, eyes widening. That new scent, now
that
was mesmer, and his collected woman. Scent was the closest sense I could associate with how I found them.

Pain, I detected pain also. That would be her.

I tapped the driver on the shoulder and pointed in the right direction. I’d picked a man who knew English well.

“That way. Go that way!”

“Sure. Yes, yes. I go that way, memsahib.”

Last days, last few days of this. I vowed that, on the spot. I was so tired of being the bringer of death. I wanted to be ordinary again. Maybe I’d stop, just stop. Find someone to decipher what was on the flash drive, like maybe Mavros?

The thought of that, of waltzing up to that arrogant man...

It tainted me with all sorts of emotions. I shuffled my back into the seat, blinking at the back of the driver’s head. I’d be ashamed to go calling at his door for advice, terrified he’d suck me back into his world. Did he want revenge anymore? Perhaps it was only me.

And then, I figured out another feeling or two, or three. Desire. Excitement. And a sort of ebbing of bad feelings. I wanted to
belong
somewhere again. To someone even. Which was a little sick. But did I need that so much that I’d be his again or even Grimm’s?

Last of all, what I wanted and needed, was a hug. I desired human contact that wasn’t at the end of a knife or a gun, or a handful of money.

I shot upright in my seat, as a feeling flashed into my mind, and hissed out a word: “Here. Stop here.”

The taxi screeched to a halt, rocking on its tires.

Red alert. Bad-guy mesmer through that yellow gate on my right.

“Come back in one hour.” I exited and crushed a note into the driver’s out-held hand.

He stared at the money. “Abso-bloody-lutely, miss. You have yourself a deal.”

Had I overpaid him? Probably. The woman whose identity, passport, and ticket I’d hijacked had come with a suitcase of clothes – half Indian style, half Western, plus a lot of money. The rupees might as well be monopoly money for all I knew of their worth.

The clothes though – the beautifully colored saris were more feminine than anything I’d worn for months.

I adjusted the handbag on my shoulder then hip, feeling the hardness of the sheathed blade inside, then I skipped across the road, prepared to reconnoiter, a little. A few street kids headed for me, running, calling out pleas for money or a chance to do me a deal, buy me a man, a woman, a great price on a used something-or-other.

I flung down a handful of coins. Not the best way to behave here but it’d do in an emergency.

When I tugged hard, the gate jerked open. I slipped inside.

Zorie

Whoever lived here had forgotten how to lock doors. Or... I paused in the middle of swinging back the front door. Maybe they knew I was coming? I wasn’t going to step inside? It wasn’t in the plan, except today I was going to be stupid. Seriously, this was becoming a habit. How many times in a row had I kept going instead of drawing back and watching?

Lots, now. A few in a row. I was addicted to this. I hated killing yet I guess I got a sort of rush from it. Wanted to vomit
and
I wanted to watch the next asshole mesmer gasp out his last breath. What I truly hated was seeing the women afterward. In general...devastated was the best word to describe them.

This would be it. Last one. Last,
last
one. Had I vowed that before the one before this? Probably.

Shit. This killing would end me.

I hated these fuckers until the end of time. The rage ground into me, upping my adrenalin.

Single-story dwelling. What seemed upper middle class for here in India. Good-quality furniture, nice rugs...and moaning and slapping from the room at the end of this hallway.

I stalked down the hallway runner like an assassin with a penchant for rugs, admiring the pattern as well as feeling every smack of pain on the woman’s flesh.

I was getting more attuned. I hadn’t felt the pain with the first ones?

No.

I nudged the semi-open door with my sandal-framed toe. The pretty brown shoe with the beads and embroidery was doing double work.

On the bed was a spread-eagled woman, facedown, naked except for some tiny panties. And standing over her? Mr. Mesmer, of course. Still in neat white shirt and dark pants, average build, and black hair and half-grown beard, with a short hairstyle that said nicely normal male.

Uh huh.

Sometimes they felt me coming. This mesmer was exuberantly incompetent. The gun on the fretwork-carved round table to my left seemed like a trap. But was it? What an easy way to get the upper hand. I couldn’t use her, not tied up as she was. My blade would lose if he went for the gun.

Gun? Blade?

What if it wasn’t loaded?
Pfft. As if
.

What a pussy. She had few marks on her skin despite the implement. Moaning, but nothing in the way of damage, nothing to write in your diary. She was barely red.

Was I critiquing the injuries these assholes inflicted?

I chanced it. As his hand rose to strike her again with the black crop, I did a quick few steps to the table and snatched up the gun.

I flicked off the safety and aimed the revolver at his forehead, duly noting the redness and sweat on his brow.

“You fucker.” I flexed my finger on the trigger, caressed the metal curve. A
Princess Bride
quote seemed apt, here in India. I’d skip the
My name is Inigo Montoya
part. “Prepare to die.”

He froze in mid strike then dropped the crop. She turned her head and stared at me over the top of her outstretched arm.

“Stop.”

Confused, it took me a second to realize that word had come from her mouth.

I couldn’t fire anyway, unless I wanted to risk the arrival of law enforcement. I’d get him to lie down, then untie her. Then she could knife him.

“Down! Kneel, face to the floor, forehead touching, hands clasped at your back.” I rasped out the commands like they were ingrained, though my head was already beginning to ache from the tension of my anger, and my jaw too. After the killings, I sometimes felt the muscle soreness for hours, even days.

Like I did, I ran the memory of Cherie’s upside down, gore-flooded death though my mind. It topped up my rage.

Mouth gaping, he paused. His knees quivered. I frowned.

“Now! Fucker!”

He knelt.

I’d never had a mesmer so obedient. In a few seconds he was exactly where I’d instructed. Some of my rage ebbed. I couldn’t afford to lose control. I stoked it by kicking him in the side. He grunted. I hissed and skipped back, my big toe throbbing.
Memo to self: wear boots.
“Don’t fucking move.”

Then I began to cut her free.

Top left wrist. Bottom left ankle. The rope took some sawing before it parted.

She wriggled and hesitantly went to undo the other side. I nodded. “Go for it.”

“Don’t. Please.” He whimpered, actually whimpered. “I’m not what you think.”

I frowned. He did
feel
a little different to the others.

“You’re her, aren’t you? The one who kills?”

I was. What was this about? The uncertainty scared me. He was odd. Maybe I should shoot him straight away?

I pressed the gun to his temple – placing the rectangular cross-sectioned metal against the squishiness of skin, flesh, and skull.

“I am. I fucking am.”

“I’m not like them. Ask her.”

“Who?” His woman? She’d say what he wanted her to.

“Margot.” He pointed at the blond chick. She’d sat up on her knees, fingers pressed to her mouth as she muttered something squeakily. Then I caught it.

“Please. Please. Please.”

“I should talk to your puppet? God dammit. I need to end this.” I clicked my fingers and sent control into her.
Here. Get my knife.

Obediently, while he pressed that head of his to the rug, she picked up my knife. It was a plain one, black handled but sharp, and ten inches long.

“Here.” I stepped to the side, gun still aimed at Mr. Mesmer’s skull. “Behind him.”

I willed her to stand behind him and place the knife to his back. To feel for the space between the ribs and position the knife side-on so it could slide in. “That’s it.”

I nodded. The heart was directly beneath the point. She’d reach it in one thrust.

Her blinking was crazy fast by now. Tears welled from both eyes. Did the woman have an allergic condition? She couldn’t be crying for him.

“Now.” I said it as I sent the command.

He knew. He tensed and shivered. The knife pricked him, and stopped.

“Do it,” I whispered.

She didn’t. Her hand quivered, the tears overflowed her lids and trailed lazily down her cheeks.

Gaping, I reconsidered. I’d never had one refuse me. “Why?” I asked her, not wanting an answer, really. This was complicating things. My grip on the revolver hardened to stone. If he jumped I’d shoot.

What had he done to her?

“I...” Slowly she sank to her knees, the knife point still on his back but barely kissing his shirt. She slipped to her knees and laid the side of her face to his heaving ribs. “I love him.”

“Fuck.”
No way.

My rage teetered, ebbed.

This was fake. “Bullshit. You hurt her,” I muttered at him, screwing up my nose.

He swallowed before spluttering out his reply. “She likes it. I swear.” Easy to say. “We’re married. Have been since before I changed.”

“No.” But doubt was stealing in.

“Yes. Please believe us.” Teary-eyed and blubbering, she hugged him then held up her hand, though it shook so much I took a while to see what she meant to show me. A wedding band.

The shock of that shuddered far beyond what it should. I found my gaze flicking about the room, seeing photos of them, with her in a wedding dress, with grinning bridesmaids and smirking groom, with her family, his...and mementos.

Mementos. Ornaments. Silver frames. Lacy fabric suspended above the bed. That clinched things, and made my heart stutter and hurt. This was pretty stuff, girly things no mesmer I’d ever seen had allowed in any room.

“Shit.”

Maybe they’d set it up. To get me.

Paranoid ideas twisted what I saw. Except I could feel what she felt. She wasn’t coerced. It was her.

She loved him.

His hand sneaked back and gripped hers. I sank backward, knees weakening and I kept going until my back hit the wall. If I’d killed him...

This wasn’t what I wanted to do.

Some people just liked kink.

What if some of the others were the same? I hadn’t allowed for much argument when I had a mesmer at my mercy.
Any
argument, really.

I gulped. “I didn’t mean to...this. Who are you? Why aren’t you the same? You’d better not be the same.”

As if I could do worse than I’d intended. Haha. I couldn’t stop doubting though. What if... Maybe he was stalling me until others arrived. Except they couldn’t know where I was.

I hefted the gun.

Despite the residual menace in my eyes, they both stood and seated themselves on the end of the bed. She cowered, bent half-across his lap, her arms around him as if to shield him from any bullet I might fire. He petted her, eyeing me as if he’d take me out with a nuke if he had the chance.

“Talk. Every single one of you mesmers has been a sadistic evil-as-shit asshole.” Excluding Mavros...and maybe Grimm. “How can you be different?”

“I’m –” He sucked in a breath. “I was given this infection as an experiment. The man in charge of the research let me go before they shut it down. I came here, stayed. My wife and I were based here years ago with the government.” His words had tumbled out. The man was scared, not arrogant.

“I’ve killed...” I played with the trigger, though the muzzle pointed at the ceiling. My own eyes were stinging, my throat tight. What was wrong with me? I cleared my throat. “I’ve killed so bloody many of you. I’m still not convinced.”

Despite all the happy photos and her declaration of love. Could these two have what I craved? Love. A life. A normal life?

“Keep going. Where was this? When? Why would any government want this? Biological warfare?”

Jesus. Was all this crap the result of some governmental directive? If it was, the world was screwed more than I thought.

“I was never told every detail but there was gossip. I gathered...” He ran his hand over his short hair. “The first they heard of it was when a man came forward, a CIA operative. He had the infection and was worried enough to confess. A patriotic sort. An honest man. Yeah, they exist. No one knew where the infection came from but they set up a research project in Thailand, away from scrutiny, so they could do things they couldn’t do on US soil. I have met some of these mesmers, as you call them, since coming here to India. They call themselves collectors.

“They had a code name at the research facility.
Experiment three zero zero.
But once we all knew what it did, we had another name for it – the Slave bug.”

So.” I blinked. “This wasn’t started by the government? But you were trying to spread it?”

What government wouldn’t be scared of half their population being controlled by random men? What government wouldn’t want to see if they could do that to the enemy’s people?

He shook his head. “No. Sure, they tried to grow it. I didn’t see how but I’m one of the test subjects it worked on. Well, half worked.”

“You’re a cripple then?” I tilted my head. He hadn’t gained the nastier side of this?

The man shrugged. “I prefer to think I was lucky. And I know they were also looking to make a vaccine.”

What the fuck? Now he had my attention. “A cure?” I let the gun droop until it hung by my side, my hand tapping against the wall.

The stingy ache returned to my eyes when he raised the woman’s hand and kissed it, murmuring. “It’s going to be okay. She’s not shooting me.”

Lovebirds. God. I wanted to be them. There were holes in me and everything good was leaking out of them. Had leaked out. Past tense. Tiny love hearts and sparkles. Probably some doves had gone missing too.

Bugger.
I wiped my eyes with the back of my other hand. Wouldn’t do for this hard-assed killer to be seen crying.

The bastard smiled at me. “They were trying, but they never succeeded, maybe. Not that I knew of. It was shut down about eight years ago. The doctor in charge of research is still there, last I heard.”

“In Thailand?”

“Yes. I sometimes get messages from him.” He looked aside. “No one else knows I’m here. Truthfully, I think some people went missing or were made to vanish, when it ended. He let me escape. I’m not courageous or foolish enough to go back to the US.”

It all seemed so correct. It fitted. Not the origin of this fucking plague, but an attempt to either use it or lose it. And they’d given up.

“Okay. Okay.” I waggled the gun. “I wasn’t here. Hear me? Not here.”

He only nodded. She stared like Bambi watching a wolf pass by, as I walked to the door and went out, shutting it behind me. I leaned on the door for a while then found my way out of the house. I hadn’t heard any frantic scramble for a phone or anything from behind the door. Perhaps they were as stunned as I was?

I didn’t have the energy to go further than their front verandah and I sat down on the warm timber and studied the gate through blurred eyes.