The Lost Soul Trilogy (Primani Book 5) (97 page)

As soon as he unlocked the door, I pushed him against the leather seat and hit the seat lever to recline. He leaned back with his arms behind his head and wore an ear to ear grin as I threw my jacket on the floor and crawled on top of his lap. Thank God I was wearing a skirt…By the time I flung it over my hips, he was ready for me. At first contact, my eyes rolled back in my head and I leaned forward to push him deeper inside me. He was perfectly happy to let me take charge for a change and I couldn’t begin to stop. With his hands holding my mouth tightly against his, I took and took and took from him.

But it wasn’t enough. Still the hourglass hovered in my mind, the sand slowly drifting through the tiny opening. I closed my eyes and moved against him seeing nothing here…nothing in this reality. I felt his hands on my skin and his mouth moving against mine, but the car was gone. England was gone. A shifting and then a wavering of the air around me…When I opened my eyes again, it was a new reality; the reality of my dreams.

Entwined in a tangle of limbs, we lay on a soft mat inside the temple--inside Killian’s
first
temple. With my fingers threaded in his hair, I caught my breath when he opened his eyes. Blue they were, but Primani they weren’t. They flashed with passion and love as he turned me to my knees and pulled my thighs apart. The beat of his heart called to mine making the rune glow vividly in the darkness. My head swam with the steady rhythm of our beating hearts, our bodies moving to it in perfect synergy. His hands held me close and I knew I’d been here before. I’d loved him here before. His woodsy scent filled my head and made me lightheaded with memory. This felt right. He felt right. I belonged here with him. I’d always belonged here.

Just as I cried out his name, he whispered against my ear, his voice desperate, “Stay with me!”

I grabbed his hand and clung to his fingers. Twin gold bands winked sadly in the firelight. As I watched, one of them wavered and vanished. My fingers began to fade as I cried out, “Don’t let go! Hold me!”

The sadness in his eyes was infinite as I drifted away from him.

“Mica! Come back to me!” he all but shouted in my ear. He gently smacked my cheek to wake me up. “You can’t stay there! You have to come back to me here.” He was starting to panic now. Shaking me gently, he called for Raphael.

I cracked open an eyelid when I felt the change in air pressure. Snapping it closed again, I lay limp as a rag doll across Killian’s body.

Raphael’s voice came dryly from the other seat, “Killian, my friend, please explain why I’m sitting here with you while you’re nearly naked--”

“It’s not like you haven’t seen one before. Shit. Don’t change the subject. It’s time, isn’t it? Please! I’m on my knees begging you. Please tell me it’s time.”

Silence.

Killian straightened my skirt and pressed me against him as if he’d shelter me from a storm. “How much longer must she drift? She’s proven her worth a thousand times already. Would the angels be so cruel?”

Silence.

“Raphael, I am flat out begging you now. Please tell me it’s time.” His voice cracked and I felt waves of desperate sadness spilling into the car around us.

Raphael cleared his throat and said, “I will see to it.”

It took a minute for Killian to find his voice, and when he did it was thick with emotion. He reached to Raphael and said simply, “Thank you, my friend.”

After Raphael vanished, Killian repositioned me more comfortably and kissed the top of my head. “I don’t want to do this to you, Princess. But you cannot know what’s to come if it’s to play out as it should. I am so sorry.”

The warmth from his fingers surrounded by brain and I slipped into a dreamless sleep.

I woke to the familiar walls of our bedroom in the safe house…two days later.

“He what?” I yelled at Dec. Poor guy was left behind to explain everything.

Backing up with palms out, he grinned at my annoyance. “Look, darlin’, he’s coming back. He had to go take care of some things and you were asleep. He didn’t want to wake you.” He broke into full laughter then. “It seems to me this is your fault; maybe you overdid it? You wore yourself out.”

“What?”

Instead of answering me, he gestured crudely to the general area of my lower body and grinned wickedly.

Oh. Yeah. The pub. Killian.

The car.

My face went up in flames. Holding himself up against the wall, he collapsed with laughter.

“Oh. My. God.”

“Uh, no, I think it was only Killian. Though I think I heard you calling for God.”

My face turned purple and I sank against the headboard. No wonder Killian left. He probably had to go heal himself!

Dec hauled me upright and looped an arm around my shoulder. Wrinkling his nose, he parked me in front of the bathroom door. “Go take a shower. Please. You smell like Killian. It’s weird for me.”

When I came out of the shower, Killian was back. He and Dec were sprawled over the couches talking. Killian looked relaxed for a change as his eyes caught mine. Pausing in mid-drink, he saluted me with the bottle and took a sip before rising to meet me by the stairs.

“I thought you were sleeping through Christmas. Are you feeling better?”

“Better?” I laughed, “Oh sure, I suppose I’m perfectly rested now.” I tapped my finger gently on his chest while adding in a dire tone, “You have some explaining to do though.”

And then I spotted the hickey on his throat. “Ugh! Why didn’t you do something with that?”

Ignoring Dec completely, he pulled me against the wall and squeezed me hard enough to crack a rib.

“That’s a mark of pride, love. Just like those scars on my back. I’m not about to heal them away.”

“Can you two stop with the cute stuff for a while? You’re making me sick,” Dec grumbled and flipped on the TV.

“Hey! You should be happy that I’m happy!” I joked.

He tossed some popcorn to Domino and they did a high five when she caught it neatly. He turned to us and grinned, “Okay, okay. I’m happy for you. But it’s almost Christmas again and I’d like to have the whole family back by then.”

Killian tossed me a beer and leaned against the bookcase. “You want to give me a report on what you’ve found so far?”

“I’ll do it. Dec, jump in if I leave anything out.”

“Monday, we went to the lab and spent an eternity looking through surveillance video from traffic cams and an ATM cam near the site where the car was found. It seemed like a bust, but then Dec spotted something.”

Dec picked up the story from there. “The cops wouldn’t see this, but I spotted it. Here, I downloaded it to the laptop to show you.”

It took a few minutes to bring up the file and then he turned the screen so Killian could see it. I leaned over his shoulder even though I knew what was there. The tape showed a hard-faced woman walking quickly to her car in the dark. After three glances over her shoulder, she threw herself into the driver’s seat and hit the lock button. The next frame showed a grainy image of someone leaning forward from the back seat. A flash of muzzle fire and then her head bounced against the steering wheel. The shooter was big, dark, and anonymous.

It could’ve been Sean.

It could’ve been anyone.

Killian rubbed at his jaw and squinted closer to the frozen image. He saw it too.

His scowl slowly changed to speculation and he leaned further in. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

There was just the tiniest delay between the time the woman sat down and the time her head hit the steering wheel. In that infinitesimal window of time, a nearly invisible flash of light illuminated the car. The police equipment would never be able to pick it up. It was impossible to see with the human eye. It was perfect in its simplicity.

“He switched the body.” Killian released the breath he’d been holding. His fingers drummed as he considered the ramifications.

Dec held back a grin and said, “Yes! You can see where she vanishes and reappears just before the head hits the steering wheel. You can also clearly see Sean in the next frame. Look.”

The next frame showed Sean exiting the car and looking straight into the traffic camera. He pulled a can of gasoline from the trunk and doused the inside of the car before tossing a match in the middle of the front seat. He stepped back and crossed his arms while the flames claimed the clothes and skin of the dead woman. We sat transfixed while the car burned and Sean watched with satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.

He saluted the camera and walked into the dark without looking back.

Dec leaned in and pointed to the backpack in Sean’s hand. Something bulged against the side as he lifted it to his shoulder. I hadn’t noticed that before. Squinting, I tried to make out the image but it was too dark and the flames cast distracting shadows over the scene.

With deadly serious eyes glued to Killian’s, Dec said, “The body was burned beyond recognition. Fingerprints gone; nothing but ash left behind. Only one way to prove identity.”

“Dental records?” I mused.

Suddenly the backpack was creeping me out. He swung it casually, tauntingly, as he strolled from the crime scene. He wanted the cops to see him.

“Oh, shit! Is that what I think it is?” My voice went up three octaves and Killian winced.

Smiling grimly, he breathed the words, “Fucking Sean. You’re a twisted genius.”

“You think this is good? He cut off her head, didn’t he? Good Lord!”

Dec patted my arm and said, “Calm down, darlin’! The woman he shot walked away. The woman who’s barbequed was already dead. Probably she had her head removed someplace else. If you opened up that backpack, you’d find a honeydew melon and not a severed head.” He patted me again and added, “He wanted the cops to see that and connect him.”

What the hell was going on?

I was totally lost…

After an eternity of silence, Killian flipped through the footage two more times, making some grunting guy sounds as he considered the images. When he was finally satisfied, he flipped the screen down and stood up to stretch.

“Okay, break for five and then we’ll get back to it.”

I was still trying to wrap my brain around the whole head-in-the-bag revelation. That was just frickin’ gross. Not to mention creepy. The guys seemed to get it, but I was struggling to not flip out and take back every nice thing I’ve ever said about Sean.

What was he thinking?

Dec slipped up beside me and took the bottle I’d been holding for five minutes. After plucking it out of my hands, he replaced it with a cold bottle of water.

“Come on, sweetheart. No more beer for you. Hydrate up! I need you ready to travel again.”

I slapped my forehead and groaned. I wasn’t ready to go back to New York…

Killian saved me from whining by crooking a bossy finger at us.

Time to get back to work.

“So next steps. Dec, what are you thinking?” Killian turned it over to Dec.

“I did some digging in the New York property records and I found some property that belongs to Christine Miller’s father. He’s been dead since 1995 but the property is still listed in his name on the deed. It’s mountain property. I’m thinking there’s a cabin on it.”

Killian nodded. “Good place to bug out. You guys get out there and get that bitch on film. We need rock solid proof she’s alive.”

Dec’s eyes took on a slightly un-holy gleam and Killian laid his hand over Dec’s arm. “For God’s sake, don’t kill the woman now! Subtle, please.”

Profoundly disappointed, Dec frowned and muttered under his breath. Killian sighed and squeezed his shoulder adding, “You can kill her another time, okay? You and Sean can do it together if you want. She’s on your list. I get it. You just can’t do it now. Understand?”

“Sure, I get it. I can wait.” His ‘who-me?’ mask was firmly in place.

Killian bit the inside of his cheek and put on his sternest expression. “That’s why you’re taking Mica with you. Mica, you keep him from doing something stupid. I’m counting on both of you for this. Sean’s counting on you. I don’t have to tell you why.”

Silence.

All of us sat perfectly still as his words bounced around inside our skulls. Sean’s sentence was 100 years. He’d been there less than two months and was already slipping away from us. His eyes still moved within the stone angel shell but they were dimming.

Soon he’d be swallowed by the stone completely.

We had to get him free.

Finally Killian said, “Today’s the 15th. You need to get back here before the 20th. That’s a hard deadline.” He met Dec’s eyes and grimaced, “A really hard deadline.”

I polished my Oakleys and shook my head. He worked absolute magic. It was fascinating to stand here and watch him work. We’d traveled Primani Airlines to get to the rental car company inside of Newark’s airport. From here we’d planned to drive out to the mountains for our little recon op. The weather was too cold to just hang out for days in a snowdrift.

The middle-aged woman at the rental car counter had intimidated and worn down every one of the customers ahead of us over the past 30 minutes. Her hard grey eyes acknowledged no one’s humanity as she denied every simple request. No, you didn’t have a choice. They only had Chevys. No, you didn’t qualify for an upgrade. Yes, you could pay for another car. That will be another $200.00 for the week. No, she wouldn’t accept American Express. Her attitude was bored, shitty, and uncaring. Everyone walked away defeated, shoulders slumped in fatigue. There was no point in arguing with her. She didn’t care if you were happy or not.