The Kindred

Chapter 16

Gaby had to admit, the cell phone was handy as she touched base with the girls time and again. She felt like a fool, pretending to have mothering qualities when she didn’t, but the girls played on her mind, and talking to them alleviated the clamoring in her brain.

She also talked to Bliss. She wanted to ensure that, if something should happen to her, Bliss would see to the kids’ safety. Bliss thought her nuts, but then, her friend didn’t know about her planned meeting in less than an hour.

Dread was yet another new sensation for Gaby, and she didn’t like it worth a damn. Especially since the dread was diluted with anticipation. She wanted to meet with Fabian, to expose his noxious lunacy and then dispatch him with appropriate, grinding finality.

But not knowing how or why Fabian felt familiar hung like a harbinger of sinister proportions over her head, clouding her perspective and her judgment.

“You okay?” Luther asked as he parked far enough away from the tattoo shop that Fabian wouldn’t be able to read his plates.

“Just ducky.” Keenly aware of their surroundings, Gaby stared out the window and studied every shadow, every shift in the wind. “Why?”

“I feel your tension.” He cupped a warm hand to the back of her neck, underneath the fall of her hair. “Remember, Gaby, I care, and in caring I can’t control my concern for you.”

“Yeah, I got it.” She studied two women sitting on steps, smoking cigarettes and bemoaning circumstances. “I care for you, too, so if I could do this without you, I would.”

He went very still, as if unsure what to say.

Gaby glanced his way. “I’m trying to work with you here, Luther.”

“I know.”

“Then what has you all shell-shocked?”

A slow smile tilted his sexy mouth. “You admitted that you care.”

“Haven’t I before?”

“I don’t think so, but if you did, it wasn’t this sincere.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on. Get the lead out. I’ve got a tattoo waiting.”

He opened the car door. “I still think it’s a stupid idea to mark your body just to hide a scar that’s damn near gone already.”

“Noted.”

“The way you heal is . . . ”

“Incredible, I know. Just another of my many talents.” Gaby stepped out to the sidewalk. She breathed in the air, held out her arms, and let her senses pick up each small clue.

Hands on his hips beneath a light jacket, Luther cocked a brow. “We’re a block away.”

“And that means what?” Sensing nothing amiss, just the usual misery and despair, Gaby started down the sidewalk. “You think he’s too stupid to be as cautious as us? Not likely. Don’t underestimate him, Luther. It could cost you.”

“I would never risk you that way. Believe me, I’m on guard for anything that might happen.”

He fell into step beside her, and it felt . . . right.

Comfortable.

To be doing this with Luther, to have him with her, changed everything. His impressive size and strength, his unwavering integrity edged by badass determination to see good prevail, lent Gaby a fresh perception on everything she saw, all that she touched and felt, wanted and needed.

She could do what had to be done. Always, without fail.

But she could also retrench, she could stay in herself instead of drowning in the zone. Because of Luther’s nearness.

The ways he effected constructive change in her used to alarm her. But not anymore. Not now.

While she’d always felt akin to a lethal tool used to bludgeon evil, now she sensed her own humanity. She remained an aberration, but hand in hand with that, she was a woman with a mind of her own, making her own decisions.

Looking to the sky, hoping He heard her, she whispered, “This feels as right as anything could. This is the path I choose for myself now.”

The sky didn’t fall on her, so Gaby accepted that God allowed her the growth. With Luther.

It had probably been His plan all along, and if she hadn’t remained so stubborn, she might have realized it sooner.

Gratitude, for what He had bestowed, and what Luther shared, burst inside her, leaving her chest tight again. Emotion could be a son of a bitch when it came at the wrong times.

Headlights hit them and Luther turned, walking backward, as he verified Ann’s arrival. “Right on time,” he whispered.

Gaby glanced back, too. Ann didn’t look at either of them, didn’t in any way give up her association or her purpose in being there.

“I like her,” Gaby confided.

“Since when?”

“Since she showed up at Bliss’s with several bags of necessary and not-so-necessary stuff for the girls. Dacia was speechless, disbelieving in that way of hers because not much good fortune has come her way. But Mali . . . she turned into a chatterbox. I could hear her laughing over the phone, so loud that Bliss got drowned out.”

“When this is done,” Luther told her, “we can take them to the park. And the movies, and the zoo. I’d love to see you at an arcade. You’d probably break the machines with your reflexes.”

Gaby didn’t know anything about an arcade, and just then, she didn’t care. She nodded ahead of them.

Luther turned back around and the tattoo parlor came into sight.

“Everything okay?”

Gaby nodded. “Yeah, I’m just adjusting to the idea of doing this your way.”

“As opposed to your way, which would be . . . what?”

He didn’t need to ask, and they both knew it. “I’d kill him, no questions asked. I look at him, and I see his black soul, the ugliness of his purpose, the sickness of his pleasures.” She put her hands in the pocket of her hooded sweatshirt. “If shit doesn’t roll out right, I’ll kill him still. Gladly.”

Luther waited.

“But I’m willing to give it a shot your way first.”

“That means a lot, Gaby.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Luther grinned, but the show of humor faded under the weight of the task before them.

Through drawn blinds, a faint light shone in the front window of the tattoo parlor. It gave the illusion of warmth inside.

But outside, shrouding the tidy brick-and-mortar building, a brume of depravity slunk and swirled, shifted and regrouped.

“He’s inside, plotting, anxious.” Gaby shook her head. “The sick fuck is giddy about something.”

Because Luther looked ready to drag her away, Gaby changed the subject. Luther didn’t understand about auras, or about her special sight that showed things even he, an intuitive cop, couldn’t see.

“I asked around about tattoos so I’d know the process. I don’t want him to slip something into my skin that could poison me.”

Far from bolstered, Luther drew up short. “I hadn’t even considered that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll know if he tries that.” Gaby kept walking, giving Luther no choice but to keep up. The sepulchral thudding of his boots on the pavement echoed over tall brick façades and crumbling stucco, faded into alleyways.

Gaby made no noise at all. “Stay here.”

Luther started to protest, and she said, “I’m trying it your way, but you’ve got to compromise a little.”

He nodded. “If you’re not back around front in one minute, I’m coming after you.”

Gaby left without further discussion. She followed the perimeter of the building to the side, where she checked an old window and found it secure. In the back, she twisted the doorknob. Locked. The other side of the building didn’t have a window. Back around front, she told Luther, “Everything looks fine.”

The front door opened. Palest light radiated from inside, backlighting Fabian’s body, casting a sinister glow around his cadaverous form. “Of course.” White teeth shone in the darkness. “Were you expecting a trap?”

“Still am,” Gaby told him as she took the lead up the stoop and to the door. “So don’t fuck up—or I’ll kill you.”

Luther acquainted himself with the shop under the pretext of awe. Dark green paint and wood trim accented yellow walls. Padded stools, a special chair, and wood cabinets had been organized efficiently.

Image suggestions lined each wall, and glass cases displayed a variety of body jewelry. Some of it was beautiful, but some of the heavier pieces looked deliberately painful.

“I had no idea tattoo parlors were so heavily equipped.” On shelves, he saw tattooing guns, inks, sterilization machines, a copying machine, and a supply of alcohol, swabs, and bandages.

A more private room, possibly an office, jutted out toward the rear, leaving a narrow hallway that led to the back door. On the other side of the hall, a closed door indicated a storage room.

Luther listened, but heard nothing more than his own breathing. The room smelled mostly sterile, with only a faint hint of ink.

Fabian had set out a tattooing apparatus and sealed needle, along with a selection of paints.

Ignoring Luther, he gestured to the chair. “Sit, Gaby.”

She bestowed on him the most noncompliant look imaginable.

Fabian amended the order with, “Please.”

Gaby sat. She eyed the many ink bottles and said, “Just black. Nothing fancy.”

“I understand. But I thought we could edge it in blue or purple—”

“No.”

Shooting for pragmatism, Fabian crossed his arms behind his back and took a breath. “I am not without experience in this. I know what will look best, how to give the tattoo depth and light and movement.”

“Just. Black.”

Luther stood behind Gaby, staring down at her head. She was so cold, so distant, he didn’t know what to think. Was it part of the act, or a real reaction to Fabian?

“Yeah,” Luther said, “I like the idea of simplicity, myself.”

Jaw clenched, Fabian nodded. “As you wish.”

To lighten the mood, Luther asked, “Is that your license on the wall?”

“I display it for the comfort of patrons. Getting a tattoo can be a big decision. I want them to know they’re in good hands.”

“Yeah, I bet.” Luther grinned, but the bite remained in the words.

Fabian took his seat. “Remove the sweatshirt, please.”

Gaby pulled it off over her head and handed it to Luther. Left in a thin T-shirt, she retook her seat and said, “Can we get on with this?”

“In a hurry?”

“Let’s just say I’m not one for idle chitchat.”

Fabian studied her. “You’re worried about the pain? I hadn’t expected that.”

“She’s not,” Luther told him with great certainty. Gaby couldn’t care less about a little pain. But he couldn’t very well tell Fabian that it was his black soul disturbing her.

Unconvinced, Fabian broke into what sounded like a rehearsed speech for his customers.

“Pain tolerance is a unique thing. Everyone reacts differently. In case you didn’t know, the ink is injected into the dermis, the deeper second layer of skin, not just the top layer. I can liken the sensation to being stung hundreds of times by a hornet. Some find the pain nearly unbearable.”

Luther snorted for Gaby. “She’ll be fine.”

But it worried him. Gaby was tough as they came, and she never experienced discomfort as much as others did. But this would be different.

She’d be doing this as a woman, not a paladin.

“I promise not to cry,” Gaby told Fabian with sharp-edged sarcasm.

“Very well.” He lifted her arm by the wrist and bent to examine her scar.

Most of the shop remained mired in shadows, with only one harsh, powerful light directed on Gaby’s arm. The glow of that lamp lent added distinction to Gaby’s features. It sharpened her jawline, defined the bow of her upper lip, the length of her inky lashes.

Disturbed comprehension palpated off her in waves.

Luther saw the wary preparation in her, even if Fabian remained obtuse.

“My God,” Fabian said when he saw how much she’d healed. He couldn’t conceal an odd satisfaction. “The wound is nearly invisible now. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

“Some of the scar will remain.” Gaby never took her burning gaze off Fabian. “That’s why I want you to cover it.”

“As good as it looks now, that won’t be a problem at all.” He sat back in his seat. “There are several things I need to do first to prepare for the ink.” He patted her arm with paternal pride. “Sit tight.”

Moving to a sink set in the wall beside the sterilization equipment, Fabian scrubbed his hands. When he finished, he returned to Gaby with swabs and alcohol and cleaned the entire area of her arm that would be tattooed, then let her rest her arm on a sterilized towel.

The alcohol had to burn the areas of her arm not completely healed yet, but Gaby never even blinked.

And Luther felt so much pride, he wanted to burst.

Gaby was the toughest person he knew, and still she had the biggest heart and the most giving nature.

He watched as Fabian opened up a single-use needle, put it in an odd machine, and settled comfortably before Gaby.

“Ready?”

“If you take much longer, I’ll be asleep.”

Fabian’s mouth quirked in a smile. “I’m going to make an outline of the design now.” He started working, his head bent to his task.

Luther winced every so often, but Gaby remained as immobile and unflinching as a brick wall.

“So, Gaby.” Fabian glanced up, then back to his work. “I saw you across the street today.”

A muscle tightened on Gaby’s face. “Do tell.”

“You were butting heads with one of our more colorful denizens. A drug dealer, I believe.”

Belying her tension, Gaby sounded bored when she asked, “You know him?”

“I’ve done most of the tattoos for the dealers in the city. They want the best and, foregoing modesty, I can say with confidence that I’m by far the best. My designs come alive.”

“Bully for you.”

“And they can afford to pay my prices, so . . . ” Fabian shrugged. “I’m acquainted with many of the more reprehensible sorts.”

“Of course you are.”

Fabian shot Gaby a look, judged her comment to be only more cynicism, and dismissed it. “This morning, before you left the area, you rounded up some of the area children to take with you.”

She said nothing, just stared at him.

He cleared his throat and nodded at the design. “What do you think?”

She didn’t release him from her gaze. “That it?”

Fabian flashed an indulgent smile. “I need to fill it in yet, but that’s the outline of the barbed wire design.”

Hoping to break the tension and help Gaby settle down again, Luther leaned over to look.

But Gaby was already saying, “It’s fine. Finish it.”

Raising a brow, Fabian used yet another sterile towel to wipe away a few spots of blood. “You’re a curious woman, Gaby.” He began swabbing the area again with soap and fresh water. “Cody, is it?”

Luther took a protective step forward, too shocked to censor his reaction. How the hell could Fabian know Gaby’s last name when she’d never given it? Something was going on, something more than he knew, and he didn’t like it.

Gaby shifted—a subtle indication for Luther to cool his jets.

Her faint amusement reassured Luther; Gaby would know if imminent danger existed.

“That’s right, Fabian.” Her slow nod gave Fabian points for ingenuity. “Gabrielle Cody, if you want the whole shebang.”

“It’s a lovely name.” He replaced the needle with a new, sturdier one and went back to work. Occasionally he glanced up at Gaby to gauge her discomfort at the puncturing needle, but she showed none.

If Gaby felt anything at all, she hid it well.

When Fabian had finished, he smiled with pride. “Well, what do you think?”

Gaby approved the overall effect with a dismissive shrug. “Looks fine. It does what I wanted it to do.”

Stung, Fabian said, “It entirely conceals any scar and even though you limited me in color, there’s a certain dimension to it that’s quite unique and appealing.”

Gaby said only, “Yeah, you’ll get paid.”

Frustrated with her lack of appreciation, Fabian scowled. “Let me just bandage it up and we’re done.” As he saw to that, he detailed more precautions. “For the next twenty-four hours, keep it bandaged. After that, you can wash it with antibacterial soap, but don’t soak it. Stay out of hot tubs or long showers. Don’t pick at it, either.”

“Got it.” Gaby started to rise.

Fabian caught her wrist. Even Gaby’s glare didn’t make him release her.

“I know why you really came here, Gaby.”

Luther kept his stance loose, but ready. “Think so, huh?”

Fabian spared him an annoyed frown. “I see the news. I know all about the body parts found.” Lip curling, he said, “The headlines have been ludicrous, painting the person responsible as some kind of perverted predator.”

“You don’t think that fits?”

This time Fabian didn’t even look at Luther. He beseeched Gaby instead. “You’re wondering if I had something to do with it.”

Gaby curled her hand into a fist, tightened it so that her muscles flexed and rippled under Fabian’s hold. Finally he released her.

She lounged back, at her leisure. “Actually, Fabian, I’m not wondering about that at all.”

“I . . . ” He closed his mouth, at a loss, but not for long. “Then you’ve already drawn your conclusions.”

Hearing a small sound, Luther eased away from Gaby on a pretext of looking at more designs. Concentrating, he listened for any unfamiliar noise—a breath, the scuffle of a shoe.

He heard nothing. But . . . Fuck. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.

His visceral reaction was to shut it down, right now. He drew a breath and held off.

“I know what I know,” Gaby told Fabian. “No doubts at all.”

“I see.” Fabian regrouped, and changed tactics. “You know, Gaby, it might interest you to find out that I have some of the same . . . special talents that you have.”

That announcement hit Luther like a shock wave. He ended his perusal of the shop and returned to Gaby’s side.

While he tingled with a foreboding of doom, Gaby didn’t look in the least perturbed. A half-smile cast her features in sinister shadows. “What kind of special talents do you think you have, Fabian?”

He grinned in absurd camaraderie, leaning forward to create a more intimate nature to their discussion. “I knew you were familiar to me. You felt it, too. Admit it?”

She shrugged. “I sensed a deeper knowledge of you.”

“I knew it! In the very same way, I recognized you and your symptoms. The extraordinary things you do are not so far-fetched as you might think.”

Luther couldn’t stand it. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Yeah.” Gaby slouched lower in her seat. “This is getting interesting. Enlighten me, Fabian.”

He couldn’t hide the hatred he felt for Luther. “Perhaps you’d be more comfortable discussing this without his intrusion.”

“Not on your life,” Luther told him.

“He stays,” Gaby added.

“Fine.” Fabian stood. He moved to a cabinet, touched a flower pot holding an overflowing, glossy philodendron. “The talents you have are symptomatic of a special breed of person. A higher power, if you will.”

“Let me get this straight.” Gaby smirked. “You think you’re a god?”

Fabian snapped a leaf off the plant. Sizzling with fury, he turned to face her. “You have a knack for running with amazing speed while not tiring. You see extremely well in the dark. You have remarkable reflexes, better hearing, smell, and taste than the pathetic majority that chokes our streets. You, Gaby Cody, are superior. And so am I.”

Gaby sat up, but said nothing.

Fabian took his chair again. With hesitant daring, he traced his fingertips along the fresh bandage wrapped around Gaby’s arm. “It was confirmed for me when I saw your increased recuperative ability.” His voice went soft with awe. “It’s almost as if you’ve bathed in blood and taken the healing properties of it.”

Luther wanted to rip the nutcase out of his chair and well away from Gaby. But this could be the confession they needed. “Have you bathed in blood, Fabian?”

With Gaby’s attention now focused solely on him, Fabian ignored Luther. “You are not meant for the peons of this world, Gaby. Please believe me.”

“What do you suggest?”

Luther knew Gaby baited Fabian, but he was so wrapped up in his recruit of her, he didn’t appear to see through her tactic.

“I know that you hurt, Gaby,” Fabian said. “I share that pain with you. But you see, I can explain it, teach you how to marshal it, control it.” He held out a hand to her. “The truth is, my dear, you and I are more alike than you know.”

“That doesn’t flatter me, Fabian.”

Luther shifted his gaze from Gaby to Fabian and back again. Gaby sounded fine, but he sensed her gathering pain and rage. Before much longer, she would break—one way or the other.

“Well, it should.” He drew a breath, let it out, and stated, “You’re a psychic vampire. Do you understand what that means?”

Luther spoke up. “You’ve been watching too much late-night television.”

If looks could kill, Luther would have been thoroughly slain by Fabian’s stare.

Gaby tipped her head as if curious. “Why don’t you tell me what you think it means.”

Keen to do just that, Fabian grew bizarrely animated. “A psychic vampire feeds off the life energy of others—those who are unimportant. It’s harmless, really. I can partake of your energy without you ever realizing it. That is to say, you, Gaby, would know, because you’re one of us. But he”—Fabian tossed his head toward Luther in clear disdain—“would be clueless. Those such as him are emotionally susceptible and can be easily left drained and lifeless, to sleep for days.”

Luther laughed. “Yeah, right.” He gestured with a hand, praying Fabian would redirect his focus from Gaby. “C’mon, Fabian. Drain me.” And then with a taunting smile, “Dare ya.”

Fabian snarled. “There is a propensity in the lesser specimens of humanity to oppose anything that tests preconceived notions. Those narrow-minded attitudes are why we superior beings are often forced to live in secret, instead of celebrating our unique qualities.”

“Your insanity, you mean.”

Gaby raised a hand to quiet Luther. “Fact is, Fabian, I’m not whatever it is you think I am. Trust me on that.”

He composed himself with effort. “You hurt, Gaby, I see that even if he doesn’t.”

Luther bristled, but kept silent. Gaby wanted to handle this, and he trusted her to do so. No matter how hard this might be, she would always be strong.

She would always do the right thing.

“The pain is caused by your need to take, to absorb energy from those weaker than you. The agony can be alleviated that way.” Fabian braced himself. “But it can be obliterated altogether . . . by drinking and feeding.”

Red flags went up for Luther, but again, Gaby didn’t react at all.

“Most times, Fabian,” she told him, “I don’t think of food. What I do, what calls to me, isn’t sated that way.”

Fabian relished the close confidence, the way she shared with him.

He closed the space between them. “Only because you haven’t sated it properly. By taking from others, you fulfill yourself and enhance your abilities.” More vivacious now, he snatched both her hands. “I alone understand this.”

“Just you, huh?”

“Yes.” He went taut with expectation. “I understand everything about you, because you inherited your talent . . . from me.”

Time seemed to stand still.

Luther heard the wind stirring outside, the ticking of the clock on the wall, his own heartbeat. He felt the whirlwind of emotions gathering inside Gaby and put his hands on her shoulders to help ground her. He prayed that his touch would be enough to calm her.

“Just what the fuck are you saying?”

Luther started, unnerved to his bones by that whisper of sound from Gaby.

“I am your father.”

Luther’s heart dropped into his stomach. Gaby blinked, swallowed audibly. The unexpected bomb had thrown her; he felt it, but didn’t know what to do about it. In a show of subtle support, he squeezed her shoulders.

She didn’t notice.

Fabian removed an aged photo from his pocket. He laid it on the table and turned it toward Gaby, then slid it over to her. “The woman beside me is your mother.”

Hands folded over the counter, Fabian smiled at Gaby, magnanimous in his claim, heedless to the inferno he’d just ignited.

“As your own flesh and blood,” he announced, “as one equal to you in our elevated capacity, I’m inviting you to join me in my quest for divinity. Partner with me, Gaby, partake of life with me, share my conquests. Be my family.”

Eyes glued to that old, creased, and crumpled black-and-white photo, Gaby shook her head. Hand trembling, she traced the faded outline of a woman’s face.

Her hand dropped away.

“Join you?” Very slowly Gaby looked up, and danger crackled in the air. “Father mine, I will destroy you.”

Before Luther could surmise her intent, Gaby upended the heavy steel table and all the tattooing implements, sending inks, needles, alcohol, and more, crashing to the floor.

Fabian stumbled out of his chair and backed up in haste, but it was fury on his thin face, not fear. “You dare!”

Gaby held her ground, heaving. “If you think . . . ” She had to stop to draw air, to collect herself enough to make the words sound as more than a raw-edged growl. “If you think telling me that you’re the son of a bitch who left me behind will in any way ingratiate me to you, you’re even sicker than I thought.”

“I did not know your mother was pregnant when I left her,” Fabian rushed to tell her.

“Would you have cared?” Gaby whispered right back.

Luther saw it on Fabian’s face, the consideration to lie or tell the truth.

Truth won out.

“No, likely I would not.” He sniffed, brushing at a splash of alcohol on his sleeve caused by Gaby’s eruption. “Your mother, child, was a filthy whore, and a pathetic one at that.”

Gaby’s knife went through the air without warning, embedded to the hilt in the cabinet beside Fabian.

Fabian’s eyes widened as he finally experienced an appropriate dose of alarm for his current predicament.

In two big strides, Luther moved between Gaby and Fabian. Had she missed on purpose? If so, why?

Gaby snagged Luther’s arm and started around him with a heavy, deliberate stride. Luther tried to stop her, but this was Gaby at her most dangerous.

Fabian scrambled back, but he had nowhere to go. “Stop right there.”

“Not until you’re dead at my feet.”

He stopped retreating, and a glint of rage entered his eyes. “I think not.”

Just as Gaby reached Fabian, he called out, “Now,” and the interior door to his office slammed open.

Luther had his gun out just as quick, but when he saw the sight before him, impotent fury froze him.

Gaby remained near Fabian, but unmoving.

Gleeful, Fabian said, “Did you really think I’d meet you without backup? Gaby, Gaby, Gaby. My dear, you disappoint me.”

Mouths gagged, hands tied, Dacia and Mali stood clamped close to the side of a man with venom in his eyes. His friend held a gun on the girls.

Smiling, the fellow said to Luther, “Drop it, and kick it toward me, real slow-like, or I splatter brains all over this fucking place.”

It galled him to do so, but Luther complied.

The man picked up the gun, then said to someone behind him, “Get in here,” and two more hostages came forward.

Bloodied and wet with tears, Bliss fell to her knees before the men. She looked at Gaby in abject apology and shame. Luther’s heart broke for her.

Next to her, Mort stood rigid, his eye bruised, his nose bloody, the gag cutting into his face. But he didn’t fall, and he didn’t cower.

Gaby’s influence on him showed in his inner strength, his brave composure. Mort stepped nearer to Bliss, trying to shield her from the men, lending her what protection he could.

Fabian had attacked everyone dear to Gaby, and in the process, attacked her where she was most vulnerable.

Fuck procedure, Luther decided. One way or another, he would kill Fabian for this.

Before the night was through, the man would be dead—at Gaby’s feet—as she had wished it.