The Kindred

Chapter 1

God please, not now.

For long minutes, what began to feel like an eternity, Gabrielle Cody fought the inevitable. Naked on Luther’s king-sized bed, she stretched taut as sweat beaded on her skin and her teeth locked.

The agony grew.

And she fought it.

As her heart pounded too hard in her chest, she repeatedly fisted her hands, clenching and unclenching the smooth, clean sheets beneath her. Exiguous moonlight snaked through a part in his heavy bedroom drapes, sending a silvery dart to cross the floor and crawl, with painstaking slowness, up the wall.

Clean. Organized. Masculine. Everything about Luther’s home, a real home, felt nice, smelled nice.

So inappropriate to the likes of her.

That Gaby could hear Luther in the bathroom finishing up a hot shower was the only salvation, the only measure to fight the staggering call. It dragged at her, commanding acceptance, gnarling her muscles, relentless in its claim on her.

She squeezed her eyes shut and thought of Luther, remembered his pleasure as she’d capitulated to his demands.

Demands to join him, to try for a normal life—to give them, as a couple, a chance.

He was a fool. She was a fool for accepting even the slightest possibility of a normal life, a real relationship.

Before excusing himself for the shower he’d smiled at her, thrilled to have her in his home, anticipation bright in his eyes. Luther thought he’d gotten his way. He thought he had Gaby where he wanted her.

Be careful what you wish for.

Another shaft of pain pierced her. It was always this way—the bid to fulfill her duty was a wrenching agony she couldn’t fight. Whenever she’d tried, the pain had grown insurmountable.

As it did now.

Sweat trickled down her temple to soak into Luther’s pillow. Already she’d soiled his fine home. If she stayed, she’d turn his entire existence black with depravity.

Her breath caught as the shower turned off. Luther would not expect to find her in his bed. No, he thought she was downstairs, waiting, where she should have been, where he’d left her. He wanted to go slow, to give her time.

But, God knew, time wasn’t always something she had.

Tonight, right now, her time had run out before she’d even begun.

Damn her plight. Damn her duty.

For so long now, Detective Luther Cross had tried to worm his way into her dysfunctional, psychotic life—and she’d resisted.

With good reason.

No matter his claims of “knowing” her, of “accepting” her and her strange eccentricities. He might think he had an inkling of what she did as a paladin, and why, but he didn’t, not really. He couldn’t.

Why had she come here?

Tears, salty and hot, trickled along her temples, mingling with the sweat. Her body strained as she tried to find just a few minutes more, just enough time to have Luther. Once. A memory she could keep forever . . .

But the relentless pull and drag on her senses, the encompassing pain that twisted and curdled inside her told her to stop being fanciful.

Should she leave without telling him? Make a clean break of it and let him wonder, let him worry?

Let him give up. On her.

On them.

Or should she try trusting him?

No, no never that. She couldn’t.

The pain lashed her, impatient for obedience, and Gaby knew she couldn’t resist it any longer. As she sat up, she cried out—and the bathroom door opened.

Luther stepped out, buck naked, tall and strong and oddly beautiful for a man. That stunning golden aura swirled around him, bright with optimism, with the promise of all that was good.

All that was the opposite of her.

Seeing her, he drew up short, stared for a moment. His hot gaze moved over her body, but not with lust as much as concern. “Gaby?”

“I was waiting . . .” She gasped, nearly doubled over with the physical torment of the calling. “For you. I was willing, Luther. I was anxious. But . . .” She staggered to her feet, unseeing, choked with the need for haste. “But now I have to go.”

He remained steadfast, still, watching her. “Where?”

How could he remain so composed, so . . . detached, in the face of what she was, what she had to do? “I don’t know yet.”

She fumbled for her shirt and dragged it on.

Words hurt. Leaving felt like death.

But she was a paladin, and being interested in a man, even a man as irreproachable as Luther, didn’t change that.

Luther didn’t ask any more questions, he just dried with the speed of a man on a mission—all the while keeping his gaze glued to the naked parts of her.

To her shock, he said, “I’m coming with you.”

“Don’t be fucking stupid.” She stepped into jeans, almost fell, and had to stop, had to gnash her teeth and squeeze her eyes shut in an attempt to contain the overpowering draw, but she knew the only relief would be to give in.

And she would—once she was away from Luther.

It was his nearness now that made the pain bearable at all, that gave her the opportunity to delay, to explain. “I work alone.”

“Not tonight, you don’t.” Already dressed in a black T-shirt, jeans, and sneakers, he reached for her. His hand touched her face, smoothed back her damp hair and some of the awful, distorting agony dissipated.

How could he affect her so strongly? How could a simple touch from him alleviate the agony?

Almost sad, definitely accepting, he reiterated, “Not tonight.”

From the day she’d met him, he’d always influenced her this way, bringing clarity in the midst of the turbulent summons, easing her misery, calming her heart.

With the short reprieve, Gaby slapped his hand aside and after stepping into her sandals, grabbed up her knife. She secured it in a sheath at her back. “I’ll say it once, Luther. Stay out of my way.”

And then, unable to resist any longer, she gave herself over to her duty.

Once accepted, it lashed through her, jarring her body, rolling her eyes back, straining her spine. On the periphery of her senses, she felt Luther there, not touching her, not deterring her, but keeping pace as she moved forward, out of his bedroom, out of his house—and into the hell that was her life.

She raced so quickly that Luther could barely keep up. The seconds it took him to lock his front door almost allowed her to get away. Ignoring the blustery morning air and lack of sunshine, he trotted across his lawn after her. Fallen leaves scuttled over his shoes. The autumn air nipped.

Gaby never noticed. She was impervious to the weather, and to his calls for her to wait.

When Gaby started past his car, he finally caught up and dared touch her just long enough to suggest, “I’ll drive.”

With her eyes unfocused, eerily vacant, she entered through the car door he’d opened and sat with a sort of charged energy that had her teeth sawing together, her brows pinching, and her chest heaving.

Pained by the sight of her, Luther bolted around to the driver’s side and got in as quickly as he could. He started the car, turned on his wipers to counter the heavy fog, and pulled out.

“Other way,” she said in a faraway voice, one that was hollow enough to send fingers of unease crawling up his nape.

Striving for calm, Luther turned the car, alternately looking at Gaby and watching the street. Dark clouds that shadowed the colors of changing leaves threatened a downpour. It’d be a cool, miserable day—perfect for his introduction into the arcane phenomena of Gaby’s mission.

The astonishment of seeing her naked, in his bed . . . well, she hadn’t given him time to assimilate that, to get his visual fill before she’d gone all ominous with recondite purpose.

Her features were now sharper, distorting the way he’d seen before, but amplified beyond anything familiar. This, he realized, was Gaby in the zone. She’d warned him against seeing her like this, tried to prepare him, but the surreal qualities gripping her had no explanation other than supernatural.

Or pietistic.

Vibrating with repressed strength and dynamic force, she paid no attention to the scenery or the direction he took. Perched at the edge of her seat, one of her small hands gripped the dash and the other squeezed the side of her seat, near her hip.

Her pale lips barely moved when she intoned, “Left.”

Luther had to cut across traffic to make the turn, but he didn’t argue with her. Warring with the need to show his trust, to give her reason to trust in return, was the image of her bare body, there for him.

Never had he wanted anything or anyone as much as he wanted, needed, Gabrielle Cody. And that in itself felt influenced by a higher power. From the first day he’d met her, he’d felt a draw to Gaby unlike anything an experienced, educated adult would recognize.

As a man of faith, Luther gave himself over to the desire, to Gaby.

But as a man of law, a man who enjoyed controlling his own fate, he prayed for guidance and understanding. In his guts, he knew he belonged with Gaby. But his mind balked at the idea of playing a role in her self-devised fight against evil.

He’d chosen a balancing act—one that left him on the precarious edge of disaster.

When they reached their destination, how would he stop Gaby from issuing her own form of punishment? He’d seen her secure her knife at her back; she never went anywhere without the deadly blade.

He knew what she could do with that knife, what she’d likely done in the past.

The rapid turn of his car, the squealing tires and angry horns from other drivers made no impact on Gaby’s expressionless void. Knowing he had to get a grip, had to formulate a plan, Luther drew a breath to steady himself against her unearthly mien.

They’d traveled out of his neighborhood and into another. Occasionally Gaby twitched or jerked, then stilled herself with obvious pain, accepting it all as any martyr would.

Already they’d gone quite a distance, surprising Luther and piquing his curiosity. He glanced at her finely drawn profile. Her damp hair hung loose, a few tendrils sticking to her cheek. “Would you have come here on foot?”

She didn’t answer, didn’t even acknowledge his presence.

Her pallor worried him, but not so much as her fast, panting breaths and the racing pulse he noticed in her slender throat. Every muscle in her thin body twitched with fervent edginess. He’d seen that body naked now, knew the frailty of it, the feminine curves and hollows.

More than anything, more than he feared the consequences of what she intended to do, Luther wanted to haul her close and protect her, soothe her however he could.

But accepting Gaby meant taking part in her dysfunctions, trusting her aberrant province and inverted moral code, being there for her wherever her mind or body ventured.

A juggling act, for certain, but somehow he’d make it happen.

The early hour of the day and the inclement weather accounted for the hush in the neighborhoods they traveled through. They drove along a street of houses converted to small privately owned businesses. Two black men stood in quiet conversation at a bus stop. A gray-haired white woman pushed a rickety cart out of a mom-and-pop grocery. A dog jumped against a fence, barking as crows dined on indistinguishable roadkill.

The damp day began to sputter from the dark clouds hanging above. The humidity thickened, and the temperature dropped.

Gaby turned to stare out the window as they passed a dress shop, a pony keg, a bar—

“Turn.”

Scouring the crowded street, Luther finally noticed the narrow alley barely visible between two parked cars occupying the curb. It ran alongside a ramshackle brick dry cleaner. Over the front door a faded wooden sign offered alterations and fast service. Prices were hand-painted in the dingy picture window.

Having only one option, he turned right into the alley.

Gaby opened her car door with the car still moving. Luther slammed on his brakes but not before she leaped out, landing on her feet like a cat. Her abrupt departure left him no choice but to park with haste and little discretion. He blocked the alley, but that was too damn bad.

Already Gaby had strode straight to the warped, unsecured back door of the establishment. Rain dripped off the leaf-clogged gutters. An overturned garbage can sent soggy refuse fleeing with the wind. Drying weeds punctured the ground of the small yard.

Luther watched Gaby’s hands fist, open, fist again. As she stood poised over something to the side of the stoop, she didn’t reach for her knife. Expression rigid, she stepped over a rumpled heap, opened the door, and went inside while scanning the area.

Trailing a few feet behind her, Luther rushed forward and almost fell over a . . . body.

A body that Gaby had barely registered.

He took in the dead eyes, the white, shriveled flesh and the signs of dissipation. Rivulets of mud trailed along a sunken cheek to drip into a gaping mouth. Death had contorted the features in gruesome display.

Judging by the skin abscesses and fresher track marks on the exposed upper arms, the dead woman had been a druggie. Probably not the owner, but then who?

“Fuck.” Drawing out his gun, Luther dogged Gaby’s heels and found her standing in the front of a crowded dry cleaner lobby with a half dozen people looking at her with rank fear.

Not that she cared about her audience. She gave them no more attention than she’d given the dead body. With keen perception, she cut her gaze over everything, the exits, the windows, the people inside.

No better ideas came to mind, so Luther stowed the gun and withdrew his badge. “Detective Luther Cross. I need all of you to stay put.” He put one hand on Gaby—not that he had any delusion of restraining her if she decided to bolt—and with the other he withdrew his radio to call for backup.

With that done, he told the woman who appeared to be in charge, “Come out from behind the counter and take a seat. All of you, get comfortable. No one’s leaving, and this might take a while.”

A dozen questions erupted from the now hostile and confused customers.

Forgoing any further explanations, Luther drew Gaby aside and turned her to face him. Color had leached back into her face, but he wasn’t reassured. “Talk to me.”

“We missed him.” Her eyes narrowed. “You slowed me down.”

How the hell could he have slowed her down when he was the one who’d supplied the transportation? “You think you’d have gotten here quicker on foot?”

“Yes.”

For now, Luther stowed his disbelief to leave room for more questions. “He who?”

Since knowing Gaby, he’d learned one thing with absolute certainty: trusting her instincts could very well mean the difference between catching a killer and letting a psychopath go free.

She shoved away his hand with disgust. “The guy who sucked that body dry and then dumped it out there. Who else?”

“Sucked dry?” The anxious customers mirrored his incredulity. Their murmurs, this time tinged with panic, filled the air. Luther concentrated on blocking them from his mind. “You want to explain that?”

“Yeah, Luther. Your new guy is a vintage bloodsucker, kicking it new school.” Her blue eyes narrowed and she turned with a purpose, heading back to the corpse.

“Gaby, wait.”

Of course she ignored him.

“Shit.” A patrol car chose that auspicious moment to pull up out front, lights flashing, sirens screaming. Luther jerked the door open. “There’s a dead body around back. I need you to keep everyone inside here until I’ve had a chance to talk to them. Got it?”

One startled patrolman nodded and headed inside while another started around back, gun drawn.

Luther rushed through the store to find Gaby, but by the time he got back outside, the only body around was the dead one.

Gaby was long gone.

Gaby knew a cold trail when she found one, but there had to be a clue left or she wouldn’t have been sent here. Allowing instinct to guide her, she went down the alley, out the back to a street . . . and sickness, like a sticky cloak, infiltrated her every pore.

Another body, drained of blood, used to feed the wickedly corrupted; she knew she’d find it, but where?

Luther wouldn’t just wait behind. He’d be searching for her with his misguided notion of protecting her while overseeing the ever-faulty legal process. She had to hurry if she had any hope of keeping him out of the treacherous path of her life.

The power within her had dissipated, but still it churned deep inside. As Gaby scanned the area, the power ripened, began to boil to the surface. Her gaze caught; there, the old building.

She started forward with driving purpose—and a flicker of lightning licked the sky, immobilizing her.

Oh God, no.

Storms always left her inert with scalding, deep-bred irrational fear. A frantic glance at the sky showed ominous clouds—but no more lightning. She strained her ears, but heard no thunder.

A deep breath sent oxygen into her starving lungs. She dragged herself forward, one foot at a time, sluggish but determined. The decrepit building loomed ahead, taunting her, daring her to brave the impending storm to find the malevolence lurking inside.

She had a duty, not only to herself, but to the person now suffering, the person being bled dry. Straining, her feet heavy and her heart clenched, she took two more steps.

The skies lit up. Nature did a full display, sending a bolt of electricity to splinter the air while a cannonade of thunder shook the ground beneath her feet. Gaby’s world squeezed in, turned black and bleak and empty of free volition.

For as long as she could remember it had been this way. Father Mullond, the man who had taken her in and tried to assist her, God rest his soul, had blamed the manner of her mother’s death for the irrational fear.

A deadly lightning strike had stolen her mother’s heartbeat. As her heart had stopped beating, Gaby came into the world—an orphan.

It was a fucked-up way to be born, and had set the tone for a life that deviated from any kind of normalcy.

Whether it was an honest recollection from birth or a learned fear from the stories told her by foster parents, she didn’t know. She fucking well didn’t care. Storms paralyzed her. Fear was fear, and for Gaby Cody—paladin, warrior against evil—it was unacceptable.

And still, she couldn’t get her fucking limbs to move.

Icy rain soaked through her meager clothes, chilled her down to her bones, and prickled her flesh. She could have stood there and died except that she heard the moan.

Not a loud moan. Not a piteous cry that others would have detected. It was faint with weakness, a meager tone that depicted resignation to death.

“Oh God.” Fighting the fear with everything she had, Gaby stumbled forward. Her muscles cramped; her thoughts were wild and scattered. But that sound drew her and she inched closer to it, closer to that deteriorated structure that once might have been a home.

Empty windows framed lush spiderwebs filled with bloated white eggs.

Dead moths littered the pathway, mixed with brittle leaves and some broken beer bottles.

All around the house, a murky aura of misery and malevolence shimmered in and out of the dank air.

The evil lurked inside, doing its foul work.

Another crack of electricity split the skies with a fantastic display of light and power. Gaby collapsed against the side of the house, her eyes going unseeing again. No, not now. God, please not now.

But the rain pounded down in a deafening deluge as the heavens thundered and crashed. Terror pervaded her every limb.

How long she slumped there, shivering and useless, she didn’t know. It felt like an eternity. She hated herself and her weakness, hated that someone suffered while she did nothing.

And then warmth enfolded her; lips touched her temple and she knew.

“Luther?” The whisper was strained, barely audible. His nearness cleared her vision and she saw again that tragic aura circling the house . . . and fading.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He lifted one of her hands and put it under his shirt, against the heat of his powerful chest and the reassuring thump of his steady heartbeat. His forehead rested against hers. “I don’t like it when you leave me, Gaby.”

She didn’t know if he meant physically leaving him—which she had done—or emotionally leaving him—which she also had done. She swallowed the bitterness of defeat and whispered so faintly that her voice barely carried over the violence of the storm, “Can you hear him?”

Luther went on alert, jerked around, searching the vacant area. When he saw no one, he turned back to Gaby, his big hands clasping her upper arms with urgency. “Who?”

“Inside. He’s . . . inside. In terrible pain.” This close to Luther, the awful gripping trepidation eased and her voice gained strength. “He’s sinking into the abyss, Luther. You have to hurry.”

He tilted her back to study her face, and she felt his alarm.

Because he believed her.

His trust helped to strengthen her, too. “Hurry, Luther.”

“Where is he, Gaby? Inside where?”

She turned her head enough to look at the blackened, empty front window of that forsaken home. “There.” She drew in a shuddering breath. “He doesn’t have much longer to live.”

Luther’s beautiful brown eyes flashed with comprehension. “I’m sorry. I’ll be right back.” He settled her down on the stoop and reached for the door. The knob turned, and a harsh wind jerked it from Luther’s hand, crashing it against a crumbling wall. Plaster and dust rose into the damp, chilled air, caught in the wind, and swirled away.

Gun drawn, Luther ventured into the tenebrous core of evil.

The second he left her, coldness and despondency mauled back into Gaby, sending pain into her restricted lungs, narrowing her sight to pinpricks of indistinct light.

Sometime after tunnel vision had closed in on her, Luther rushed back outside. He gathered her close even as he snapped out orders into his radio. The festering fear made it difficult for Gaby to focus, but she grasped that he wanted his partner, Ann Kennedy, to join him, and an ambulance.

When he said, “And bring some tools—something to cut through chains and locks,” Gaby stirred. Chains? Locks?

Voice grim, Luther added to Ann, “Yeah, you heard me right. The poor bastard is shackled down tight to the floor.”

By the time the street filled with police cars, lights, and sirens, the storm had turned fierce beyond anything Gaby had ever experienced.

Was this a precursor to her life with Luther?

Did God want her to understand the folly of trying to cultivate a relationship?

Concentrating on that thought, along with Luther’s nearness, gave her a means to ward off the phobia. To his credit, Luther managed to do his job and watch over her at the same time. Did he expect her to run off screaming? Or to interfere, as she wanted to do?

He’d seen her in a storm only once before. After this, he’d never forget the effect it had on her.

Shame at the insidious weakness bit into her, but even that couldn’t shake the last residue of panic. She was cursed, in more ways than one.