Dark Hunger (32 page)

A blonde looked up and wrinkled her nose. “No, not today.”

The brunette nodded agreement. “I figured she’d be back by now.”

Panic tightened Quinton’s chest. He didn’t know where to turn. Where to look.

If only the message had told him something specific.

He had to call Vincent. Ask for his help. He was the only one who understood that they were looking for a demon. He clenched his cell phone and punched in Vincent’s number. His brother answered on the first ring.

“Quinton, I was just getting ready to call you.”

“Listen,” Quinton said, cutting him off. “I just questioned Gryphon. He’s not our perp. And I received a text message. I think the Death Angel has Annabelle, but I don’t know where he took her.”

“I have another person of interest,” Vincent said.

“Then tell me, dammit.”

“I cross-checked the list of guests attending the ceremony last night with a massive list of volunteers, doctors, social workers, all who’d aided the homeless in the last year, along with their schedules, looking for someone who travels around.”

“And?”

“Guess whose name came up?”

“Fuck, Vincent. I’m not in a guessing mood. He might have Annabelle.”

“The forensic specialist, Dr. Wynn. He’s been in all the targeted cities the past few months, does consultant work on various cases. He tends to rent a place when he’s in town, and I’m at his rental in Savannah right now.”

“And?”

Vincent exhaled. “Sam Wynn died over twenty years ago. This demon, the Death Angel, may have possessed his body from the grave.”

Quinton’s head reeled.

“Sam Wynn was a piece of work,” Vincent continued. “He had Asperger’s syndrome.”

“That’s a form of autism, right?”

“Yes, he was highly intellectual but couldn’t relate to others, to humans. Quinton, this guy was a serial killer who liked to chop his victims into pieces, then eat them.”

A cannibal? Quinton’s stomach turned. “Just like the vulture. He cleans their flesh. Then he collects the bones as his trophies to showcase his hunt.”

“It fits,” Vincent said. “He needs to be destroyed, Quinton. You won’t believe what I’m looking at.”

“What?”

“Bones,” Vincent said. “The man collects bones from various crime scenes. My guess is from those he’s killed.”

His stomach knotted. “The bones are his souvenirs.”

“Hell, yeah. This is one sick son of a bitch.”

“He owns a place in New Orleans?” Quinton asked.

“Yes. But if you’re at the hospital, I’d check the morgue first.”

Holy hell. The morgue—a perfect place to hide a body. Was Wynn going to set off a bomb in the morgue and watch the bodies explode?

“If he’s not there,” Vincent said, “he might have taken Annabelle to his rental property.”

Quinton memorized the address as he raced toward the elevator to the morgue. Impatience gnawed at him as he waited, so he took the steps, jogging down them two at a time.

At the landing, darkness engulfed him, the scent of death, vile body odors, and chemicals wafting toward him. He pushed into the hallway, checked the signs, turned left and jogged down the corridor, then through a set of double doors. Someone should have been at the office desk, but it was vacant. He pushed through another door to the back cold room, scanning it for Annabelle, for Wynn. But the room was empty.

Except for the body bags in the storage room.

His breath tight in his chest, one by one, he forced himself to check each body bag.

Thank God, Annabelle wasn’t inside.

Heart racing, he headed outside to his car, punching in Detective DeLang’s number as he went.

“Detective, it’s Quinton Valtrez. We have reason to believe that Dr. Sam Wynn may be behind the bombings.”

“Dr. Wynn from the FBI?”

“Yes. I think he has Annabelle Armstrong. Send a crime unit to the hospital morgue to check for forensics.”

“Got it. I’ll put out an APB on him as soon as I hang up.”

“Thanks. Wynn has a rental house in the bayou. I’m going to check it out now.”

“Call me if you need backup.”

“I will.” Quinton hung up, knowing he wouldn’t call. If Wynn was there, if he’d hurt Annabelle, he’d forget the police. Demon or mortal—it didn’t matter.

He’d kill him.

Fear snaked through Quinton. Annabelle could not be dead. Not the beautiful gutsy woman who’d had the audacity to challenge him. Not the one who’d willingly given herself to a dark man like him.

He ran to his car, frantic. Traffic crawled through the city, bright headlights nearly blinding him as he drove toward the bayou. Dilapidated and storm-tattered housing bled into view, and the smell of the backwater rose like a murky stench from the ground as he neared the dirt road leading to Wynn’s place.

Horrid images bombarded him. Did he have Annabelle? And if he did, what had he done with her?

He’d dealt the hand of death plenty of times without batting an eye, but a cannibalistic demon?

He slowed the car, flipped off the lights, and stopped. Once out of the vehicle he approached quietly, his gaze scanning the weed-infested yard, the strip of a muddy walkway leading to the river, and the gator-infested swamp. Eerie eyes peered up at him, and water splashed as a gator floated toward the bank, its sharp teeth gnashing as it whipped its tail and screeched an attack call.

Gators gathered at the bank, hissing and snapping at him as if he’d come to rob them of their meal.

Inhaling to control his temper, he knelt and focused on summoning strength from nature, on calling to the bayou and the gators and the spirits that drove them all. To the loup-garou who haunted this land with the swamp devil’s cry.

I am not your enemy, he willed them silently. I am your friend.

One gator whipped its tail, slapping the muddy Mississippi viciously, and water splattered his face. He brushed it off, didn’t have time for these games.

Utilizing every ounce of his physical, spiritual, and mental powers, he silenced their hisses and sent them floating back through the water on their backs, completely at his will.

Silently, he inched through the overgrown weeds and tupelo trees, letting the spidery moss of the giant oaks shield him as he approached the weathered shack. His training as a Ghost kicked in and he moved silently, his feet barely making a sound as he crossed the rocky path littered with dried leaves and twigs.

The biting wind brought the scent of a dead animal to him, reminding him of the dangers of the bayou and the cycle of life and death.

That death couldn’t be stopped.

Maybe not forever. But dammit, he refused to let it have Annabelle tonight.

Gray shadows hovered like clawing hands surrounding the rotting shanty, spiderwebs covered the porch awning, and inside, the place looked black. The stairs leading to the front porch creaked beneath his weight. He gripped his gun at the ready as he climbed them and peered through the fog-coated window.

From where he stood, the shanty appeared to be empty, but he prepared for attack as he tried the doorknob. The frame was so rotten that the lock sprang free with little force, and he scanned the interior.

Nothing.

He inched into the space, listening for a breath, a sound, but a cold, empty mustiness greeted him along with the acrid scent of death.

Cursing, he found a frayed old lamp and turned it on, the dim light it cast radiating across dingy walls.

Walls covered in bloodstained bones.

Annabelle struggled to regain consciousness, to understand what had happened to her, but the dark cavern was so black she couldn’t see two feet in front of her. And it was cold, so cold her body was numb, as if it had been frozen in ice.

Her limbs felt paralyzed as well, her lungs battling for a breath. Inhaling only drew rancid odors that sent bile rushing into her throat.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the sound died, echoing in the frigid empty darkness. Then reality returned. She had driven to the morgue to say good-bye to her father.

But she’d been attacked instead. The call had been a trap.

Tears blurred her eyes, freezing on her cheeks, and another blast of cool air assaulted her, sending a chill through her already numb body.

“Why are you doing this?” she cried. “Are you such a coward that you won’t show yourself?”

Suddenly the brush of sharp points—fingers, no,
talons
—made her skin crawl. They jabbed her skull and fire singed her nerve endings, sending a jolt of unbearable pain through her temple. She screamed, her body trembling as the pain sizzled through her head.

She had to fight. She wasn’t a quitter. Somehow she knew this madman or creature, whatever it was, had destroyed her father, and she wouldn’t let him win now.

As if to defy her courage, a vulture’s screech reverberated through the darkness, and she cringed, knowing he was stalking her, waiting for her to die.

Quinton’s face flashed in her head and she whispered his name.

“Please, Quinton, save me… I don’t want to die.”

Quinton stiffened, the faintest whisper of Annabelle’s voice breaking into his conscience.

“Save me…”

His gut tightened. “I won’t let him kill you, honey,” Quinton whispered. “Just tell me where you are. Give me a clue.”

But only the sound of the wind rattling the trees met his request.

And the broken and mutilated bones on the wall mocked him, nearly choking him with fear.

His mind raced with panic; he couldn’t think, didn’t know where to turn.

He had to call his brother again. He was the only one who understood what they were dealing with. The only one he could trust.

“Did you find him?” Vincent asked.

“No, but I just reached his cabin. You were right—the walls are covered with human bones. But he’s not here and neither is Annabelle.” His voice cracked. “I don’t know where to look now.”

“Listen, Quinton, I checked into that woman you talked to, Shayla Larue.”

“What does she have to do with this?”

A nervous pause. “Quinton, Shayla Larue has been dead for fifty years.”

Quinton’s shoulders tightened. “There has to be another Shayla Larue.”

“Maybe,” Vincent said. “Or maybe she rose from the grave on All Hallows’ Eve just as Wynn did.”

A bead of sweat slid down Quinton’s brow. “You think he took Annabelle to the shelter?”

“No. Shayla is buried in a graveyard in New Orleans, the same one where the famous voodoo priestess Marie Laveau is buried. Larue was rumored to be one of her descendants, a very powerful voodoo priestess with supernatural powers.”

Quinton rammed his hand through his hair. “What does this have to do with Annabelle?”

“Dr. Wynn… was buried in that same cemetery.”

Quinton’s blood ran cold. “You think Wynn might have carried Annabelle to the cemetery? That Shayla Larue knew his spirit had risen but didn’t know what body he had possessed?”

“It’s the best theory I’ve got,” Vincent said.

Quinton took off running toward his car. “Which cemetery did you say it was?”

“St. Louis cemetery. It’s one of the oldest in New Orleans.” Vincent’s voice dropped a decibel. “People say they see apparitions there at night in the passageways between the tombs.”

Quinton started the engine, sped down the dirt road and onto the highway, then raced past a slow-moving car, blew his horn at another to move out of the way. Precious minutes crawled by as he maneuvered through traffic. Sweat beaded on his neck and trickled into his shirt, and for the first time since he was a child locked in that dark closet, his hands shook with fear.

Dammit. He was never rattled like this on a mission. But he’d never tried to save anyone before.

And if Annabelle died, it would be very personal.

He had to reach her in time.

A dozen scenarios flashed into his mind. Annabelle being tortured, her brain fried in her head. Annabelle with a bomb strapped to her chest.