Forbidden Passion (6 page)
He frowned, then pulled on gloves and reached for the pad.
His anger mounted as he flipped through the pages. The crude drawings depicted a female tied to a bed, blood splattering the sheets, the floor, and the walls.
The Satanic S the man had drawn was similar to the S formed by the burning bark.
Dammit, he had to find Gerald Daumer. He might be the killer.
The Seer bowed before Zion’s throne, the fire blazing and heating her back. She had been assigned to track Dante and detect any obstacles that might stand in Zion’s way.
Zion waved his massive hands. He was ready for the anarchy to begin.
He’d already commissioned his minions to spread the evil and escalate the attack on humanity. Soon he would join them on Earth to aid in the wars.
“You have seen my third son?”
The Seer lifted her head, her black eyes glinting with a streak of purple. “Yes?’
“Have his brothers found him?”
“Not yet.”
“Good. I will find a way to pit them against one another.”
The Seer nodded, but her reluctance to share what she’d learned about his third son raised Zion’s suspicions. “Tell me about Dante,” he commanded.
“Master, I’m afraid he is not the man you thought. He has made it his life’s work to protect the town.”
“No!” Zion roared. “Dante is my hope. He is a fire-starter as I am. He has great powers.”
“I’m sorry, Master, but he went rogue at his initiation years ago and refused to kill the girl he was assigned to hunt.” Venom laced her voice “He has a weakness for women and children, and to this day enforces that code.”
“Tell me about this girl—this woman,” Zion said, seething.
“She is some kind of doctor and is obsessed with research into violent and aberrant behavior. Worse, Zion… she is Dante’s soul mate, the one who has the power to restore his humanity.”
Fury rolled off Zion in waves of shooting flames, crackling against the black walls of the cave. “Has my son mated with the woman yet?”
“Not yet,” the Seer replied. “But, Master, if they copulate on the night of the Hunters moon, they will produce a child.”
The Hunters Moon—that was only days away.
“This child cannot be created,” Zion roared. “Not now. Not ever.”
Chapter Eight
Guilt plagued Marlena. “The police are looking for Gerald. I hope they can bring him in without hurting him.”
Anger flashed in Dante’s eyes. “How can you be concerned about him after the brutal way he killed Jordie McEnroe?”
Marlena sucked in a sharp breath at the animosity in his tone. With that scar running down his neck into his shirt he looked dangerous.
“We don’t know for certain that he killed Jordie. I need to question him further.”
Dante slapped one hand on top of the sketches. “This looks pretty damning to me.”
“Fantasizing about doing something and actually committing a crime are two different things,” Marlena said.
A muscle ticked in Dante’s jaw. “True. But if this maniac hasn’t killed, then he’s going to.”
“Not necessarily,” Marlena argued. “There have been cases where people who witnessed a crime were so traumatized that they drew pictures of the crime scene, and other cases where they even confessed as if they had committed the act themselves.”
“Which means Daumer might know who the killer is,”
Dante said in a harsh voice. “All the more reason to hunt him down and bring him in.”
Marlena stiffened. “You say hunt as if he’s an animal.”
“Whoever killed Jordie is an animal,” he said bluntly. “After what happened to your family, I’d think you of all people would want to see him punished, Marlena.”
Marlena frowned. “If he’s guilty, I do. But I just want him brought in alive so I can talk to him. I need to run tests on him as well, make a diagnosis so I can treat him.”
“You want to use him as part of your research?” He shifted and made a sound of disgust. “You really think you can find a way to stop deviant behavior by altering blood and using genetics?”
Marlena arched a brow. “How did you know about my project?”
“I read the paper,” Dante said icily.
Marlena swept a strand of hair from her cheek. “I do believe genetics plays a part in some people’s tendency toward violent and aberrant behavior. Other behavior is learned. But yes, I think there may be genetic markers or chemical imbalances that cause some people to be more aggressive or to commit criminal acts.”
A predatory look tinged his eyes, his thick brows set in a permanent frown. Yet she sensed he was shutting down.
She’d studied human behavior and body language, and Dante had secrets.
His offensive stance screamed of intimidation and power, and his guarded expression warned her not to probe too deeply.
-
That she wouldn’t like the truth beneath his mask.
For a brief second, she flashed back to the day her family was murdered, to the way Dante had run so fast. To the fire that had erupted in the woods. She’d thought that the monsters had started the fire.
Dante had said he’d been camping in the woods that day, but he had come from the same area as the attackers.
He couldn’t have been with them, could he?
No, that was ridiculous.
. .
he had saved her. He was the sheriff, not a killer.
She gathered the extra papers on the floor and glanced through them—odd, but they were scribbled notes about various research projects. Nothing specific or confidential, just a smattering of her suppositions and theories.
Why would the killer have been interested in them?
The need to protect Marlena warred with Dante’s need to keep his distance. Marlena stacked the papers on her desk. Tension lined her beautiful face, but her defense of Gerald Daumer had irritated the hell out of him. If Daumer had killed Jordie, he deserved to suffer, not be pampered in some damn mental hospital.
Still, he sensed a demon had been in Marlena’s house, and that the killer might come back for her.
He couldn’t live with himself if she died at the hands of a demon, especially if this latest attack was from Father Gio or his band of brothers.
“I need to know where Daumer lives, where he worked, everything about him.”
She nodded. “I’ll get his file and send it over.”
“No, I want to check his house tonight in case he went back there.”
Marlena nodded. “I assumed your deputy already did that. Dr. Chambers gave him Gerald’s address.”
“I’ll call Hobbs.” Dante stepped aside to make the call.
“I haven’t had time to go by the house,” Hobbs said. “But I did issue an APB for him.”
“Give me the address and I’ll check out the house.” Hobbs recited the address and Dante quickly memorized the street name.
As soon as he ended the call, he phoned Judge Brannigan for a warrant. If he found evidence, he didn’t want it to be thrown out in court.
If he allowed Daumer to live long enough to go to trial…
“Will you be all right here?” Dante asked.
Concern shadowed Marlena’s eyes. “I’m going with you. If Gerald is home, I might be able to persuade him to turn himself in without anyone getting hurt.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then finally conceded her point. “But you follow my lead. If we’re right, he may be very dangerous.”
Marlena lapsed into silence as they walked outside to his SUV. Dante’s instincts rose and he scanned the property.
The scent of blood seeped from the woods, along with the acrid odor of charred wood and flesh, but he sniffed and recognized it as animal blood, so dismissed it.
A tense silence stretched between them as he drove down the mountain toward town. Her sweet, sultry scent filled the car, taunting him with her essence, and his primal needs erupted.
He wanted to soothe the worry from her brow. Protect her in case she was in danger.
He wanted to strip her and feel her bare skin against his, hear her sigh of pleasure as he stroked her body with his lips and tongue.
Hear her cry of orgasm as he claimed her.
A curse rolled through his head. He had to banish those thoughts. Marlena was the last woman in the world he could be with.
They stopped by the lab to drop off the sketchpad for analysis, then the judge’s house for the warrant.
Judge Brannigan was in his late fifties, his hair thick and black, a cigar in his hand. His eyes were slanted, his chin bulbous, an icy coldness radiating from his scowling face. “You think you’ve got this guy?” he asked.
Dante avoided the man as much as possible. His job was his cover, and he had to be careful not to blow it. “We’ll know more once I search his house.”
Brannigan guffawed. “Put away this maniac, and you’ll be the town hero.”
Dante bit back a chuckle. Him a hero? Hardly. “Thanks for signing the warrant,” he muttered.
Rain began to fall in heavy sheets, thunder booming, the wind beating at his SUV as he drove toward Daumer’s. Dante flipped on the radio to listen to the weather report.
“Heavy storms are threatening the area with rains that could flood Stone Creek and Devil’s Canyon and make conditions dangerous. Radar also indicates that the temperature is dropping and the rain might turn to sleet.”
Dante slowed as water spewed from his tires and traffic crawled as he passed the new subdivision in town, turned onto a side road, drove by the mountain lodge the hunters used, then passed a series of cabins. Finally they arrived at the tiny clapboard house where Gerald lived.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered Marlena as they climbed out and slogged through the rain to the front door. The house was run-down and old, the wood rotting, paint peeling off like dead, brittle skin.
Bracing his gun at the ready, he pushed Marlena behind him and pounded on the door. “Daumer, it’s the sheriff. I have a warrant. Open up.”
-
He ground his teeth while he waited, then pounded the door again, but no one responded. Raising his foot, he kicked at the frail wood until it splintered and snapped and the door burst open.
He held his hand up and gestured for Marlena to wait outside while he slowly inched inside and searched the premises.
Five minutes later, he returned, his expression grim as he signaled for her to follow him inside.
Instinct quickly kicked in as he assessed the house for details that would reveal more about Daumer. Signs of his obsessive-compulsive disorder showed in the neatly hung towels, the magazines lined on the table, the meticulously organized canned goods stacked in alphabetical order in the pantry.
Yet the man’s bedroom seemed oddly disorderly, as if someone else lived in the room.
He pointed toward a large corkboard filling one wall, a board filled with dozens of articles about serial killers that had been cut from newspapers.
Photos of an arsonist who’d terrorized a small town in Tennessee lined another board along with photos of another man who’d brutally stabbed several women in Georgia. Another article detailed a group of Satan worshippers in a small mountain community who had given live offerings of females to Satan.
There were also articles about Marlena and her work at BloodCore.
“Oh, God,” Marlena whispered.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to defend him now, Marlena.”
Her face twisted with fear and concern. “No, I hate to say it, but this does look incriminating.”
“Hell, Marlena, this maniac built a damn shrine show-casing his sick urges, a damn shrine to you.” He gripped her by the wrists and shook her, determined that she see how much danger she was in.
“He killed once now, and he’s going to do it again?’ Dante’s voice hardened. “And the flicker’s only getting started.”
The sweet metallic taste of blood seeped through his fantasies. He dreamed about it, fed on it, craved it constantly.
He had ever since that night when the demon had been born inside him.
The monster had started to eat at him slowly. Whispering his name. Urging him to think evil thoughts. To commit heinous acts.
Eventually the pull had been too strong, too alluring, and he’d succumbed to it..
Tonight he intended to feed his bloodlust again.
Evening shadows danced across the room, the smell of the woman’s fear palpable.
She slowly roused from her unconscious state where he’d tied her to the bed, perspiration dripping down her forehead into her eyes. “Please don’t kill me. I promise I won’t tell anyone what you did.”
He laughed, then traced the knife blade across her bare breasts, smiling as her chest heaved and blood trickled between the heavy mounds.
“Please,” she whispered. “My father has money. He’ll pay to have me back alive.”