Avenger (2 page)

“Hey, you,” some moron screamed at the top of his lungs. Would these people ever consider adding a name when they call each other?
Sheesh
! Pru straightened up and resumed walking while massaging her middle.

“You, girl in violet shirt! Wait up,” the man shouted again. Yeah, adding an adjective might attract some girl’s attention. What a lousy pick up line.

She stopped in half stride. Hold on a second, she thought, I’m wearing a violet shirt.

“Yes, I’m talking to you. Turn around,” he said, more calmly now that he had her attention.

The resonance of his voice kindled a flicker of recognition in her. His voice, full of authority, demanded immediate yielding. Pru half turned, hope surging through her like an electric shock. She pointed at herself and asked in a shaky voice, “You’re talking to me?”

The man’s upper half was in shadows, but he seemed to still at hearing her voice. Anyone would if they could see
through
someone else.

“Pru?” He uttered her name in a husky and deep whisper. It did nasty things to her pulse.

He stepped out of the shadows. Long, muscular legs clad in black pants were revealed, the swagger slow and surefooted. The shadow receded and the man’s torso emerged. Black t-shirt stretched over a broad chest, outlining every bit of its firm muscularity. Raising her gaze, Pru encountered a firm mouth set in a smirk and deep cryptic, dark eyes that made her their sole focus. All that rugged handsomeness was topped by army style trimmed black hair.

“Luke?” Pru blinked, not believing her eyes. Occasionally, memories of her teen crush pushed through her mind for no reason and she used to push them back. She couldn’t do that now, those memories were in the front seat because he was standing right in front of her.

He just had to develop a voice that dripped awesomeness.

Pru shook her head.
What’s wrong with me?

Luke gawked at her, his hands tucked casually into pants pockets. Pru had the impression he wasn’t as nonchalant as his appearance implied for meeting the girl who—according to him at the time—qualified to enter a mind-fuck contest.

“What are you up to?” He barked at her.

Definitely tense.
She
chose to ignore his rudeness. “You can see me?” She rushed toward him then halted as memories of previous attempts to touch others surfaced in her head. They were nasty experiences that left her reeling with emotions alien to her.

“Are you looking for a place to stay?”

She tucked a runaway strand of hair behind her ear and frowned. “What do you mean?”

Slowly, he said, “Are you up for a stay?” His voice had an edge to it, one she didn’t trust.

Eyes narrowed, she said, “I’m not homeless. Your hostility doesn’t make sense.”

He lowered his head and shook it. Perhaps if she explained her situation, he might know what she should do. “I guess I should be grateful for meeting someone. It’s been very lonely. No one to speak to—”

“And no one to possess.” A vein throbbed in his jaw.

She took a step back. “Possess?”

“Since I’m the only living person who can see you, I suggest you drop the innocent act.”

People gawked at him and changed paths as they neared him. It didn’t seem to bother him that others thought he was talking to himself.

Pru laughed, pointing a finger at herself. “You think I’m dead?”

“I
know
you’re dead,” he said through gritted teeth and pulled his hand from his pocket. “Time to send you home.”

Home was too far away, way beyond her lifeline’s limit. An ache pulsed in Pru’s chest and birthed a fury that paralyzed her with its intensity. Instead of facing her, Luke swiveled about, his gaze following a woman pushing a baby stroller. Pru ceased to exist for him and that infuriated her even more. She stomped a foot. “You don’t even know where I live.”

He kept looking at the other woman.

“I’m talking to you, Luke. Look at me.”

He tilted his head as though tuned to something else. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I see that.” His eyes flicked back to Pru. “I’ll have to give this one a rain check then.” Smirking, Luke lifted his hand and saluted her. “Catch you later, sunshine.” With that, he followed the other woman.

“Don’t call me that,” Pru shouted and dashed after him. After few strides, her breath caught and her steps faltered. Like a lasso, the invisible lifeline tightened around her mid-section, constricted her chest, and snatched her back.

She had overstepped her boundaries.

Chapter Three

“Who is sunshine?” Celestine asked.

Luke almost laughed aloud. Perhaps Pru’s current state didn’t fit what Celestine would consider gorgeous, but if things were different, Luke would’ve tried his luck again with her. He was older now, more experienced at wooing a woman, except, Pru was a spirit now, an odd one on several accounts. She drifted aimlessly in the street—seemingly sad and forlorn—while keeping her former visage of humanity. If it weren’t for her semi-transparency, she could’ve passed for a looker walking down the street.

Pru had grown into a voluptuous seductress. Her lustrous red curls pattered all the way to the middle of her back and sashayed with the slightest move she made. She was garbed in a figure-hugging mini-jeans skirt and a violet top that weren’t changed by the hue of an aura. Black leather boots ended just below the knee, hugging shapely long legs. The sun-kissed flawless skin, the sympathetic dark eyes turned down at the corner—just enough to give a look of compassion—and lips full, glistening with lip-gloss.

When she’d lifted her hand to point at herself, she’d inadvertently flashed an expanse of smooth, caramel midsection. Luke’s heart had thrummed in his chest, his pulse raced, desires—long forgotten and ignored—stirred. Then she spoke. Her voice, gentle and smooth like hot chocolate on a cold winter night, slid on his nerves, calming them, chasing away the tension.

“It’s a pet name for the spirit I was trying to entice into possessing me voluntarily since she obviously was out shopping for a body,” he said. If a spirit was without a body—in which case the spirit-hunting dagger wouldn’t work—Luke could either inhale it or invite it to possess him. Since none of the pests allowed the inhaling, it was always option two.

Celestine had warned him spirits were organized and very much aware of the existence of the celibate Spirit Hunter. Now they’d enlisted the aid of someone he knew. Damn it to hell, he was seduced by a spirit whose hobby while growing up was stealing, just for laughs. Being a pickpocket was a hobby of hers, but she always returned what she took. For her it was like a coin trick presented to impress small children.

“Luke, Stop!”

The alarm in Celestine’s voice pulled him out of his reverie. “I’m going to lose that yellow baby.”

“There was no spirit with you. You were talking to yourself when I arrived.”

****

If Celestine were capable of giving side-glances, Luke thought he would have given him one. As the Spirit Guide, Celestine should be able to see and hear the dead and the living. Why not Pru?

“You have been using the drugs you sell to others. They cloud your thinking and I am not sure how they will affect the Spirit Within you.”

Since becoming the spirit hunter, Luke hadn’t touched drugs. He’d tried only once and they gave him kaleidoscopic purple and yellow hippie dreams. Besides, the Laymour crowd controlled his existence, and he wouldn’t risk irritating them this much. “I haven’t been using. I was talking to a spirit who was standing right next to you.”

Celestine’s incorporeal form shifted and hovered around in silence.

“Dammit. Fine, don’t believe me. Like I care.” The balls on these Domines. First, they gave him a deadly ultimatum, then they offered him a risky existence—one without the joys of rubbing hips with willing females—and finally, they hijacked his body to do their bidding.

The woman wheeled the stroller through the mall’s double doors, bringing Luke’s attention back to her and the baby. “We’d better continue our argument later. Have you ever seen this before?”

“A possessed infant? Never. However, there is a first time for everything.”

“What can that spirit do as a baby except drool and shit itself?”

Celestine was silent as Luke approached the door. Fortunately, black was always in fashion. His getup of black t-shirt, black jeans, and dark blue sneakers wouldn’t attract attention.

“While serving with the previous Spirit Hunter—”

Luke huffed. “Here we go again. I get it, he was decent, he was honorable, and he never touched drugs.”

“Yes, that is the one. While with him, I marked a possessed prisoner on death row. In both cases the host is incapable of causing mischief.”

Nothing made sense anymore. Possessed babies and aura-less Pru? To add to his confusion, at night, he should be able to distinguish auras. How come it wasn’t the case with her?

Or something was wrong with his vision. Celestine hadn’t seen her.

Luke tagged behind the woman as she visited several shops and tried on hats, scarves, and flip-flops. He maintained a decent distance between them, until she entered a boutique.

“This store has several exits,” Celestine said.

Which meant Luke might hang about the wrong way out. With a sigh, he strolled leisurely into the shop and pretended to examine a dress.

“May I help you?” A bored teenaged shop assistant asked.

He flipped the label on the dress and asked, “Yeah. Is the shop organized by size or brand?”

The girl smiled understandingly, her eyes gaining interest as she did a quick appreciative scan of him. “By brand. I can help if you like.”

Something about his darker side intrigued women into thinking they could tame him. He returned her smile with a sheepish one. “I still haven’t decided what to get my girlfriend for our anniversary. If I’m stuck, I will call on your experience for a safe choice.”

His too polite tone didn’t go with his dark outfit and bad-boy persona. The girl would have suspected him but he had pushed through her mind a plausible thought, his gaze focused on her eyes.
What harm could he do beside maybe anger his girlfriend with a shitty gift?
He looks lost and will definitely ask for help if I leave him to his own device.

The salesgirl nodded and returned to hanging tried-on outfits back in their places.

From the corner of his eye, Luke caught a glance of the mother on her way to a fitting room, a couple of dresses folded on her arm. There were two regular size fitting rooms and a larger one to accommodate a wheelchair or a stroller. Lucky for him, the mother paused long enough to examine a purple swimsuit. With long strides, he entered the large fitting room, which had a small alcove next to it. Three mirrors adorned the alcove to reflect different angles. In the room, he cloaked himself in invisibility and stilled.

As the woman pushed the stroller in, one of its wheels rolled over Luke’s foot. The motion startled him, especially when she rolled the stroller back and forth several times to pass the
protrusion
in the floor. Shrugging, she hung the clothes on a hanger and pulled the curtain closed.

This is highly inappropriate
, Celestine said telepathically.

Where else will I get the baby alone?
Luke snapped back.

At least avert your gaze.
Disapproval lent Celestine’s telepathic response a dry note.

The mother was fine in her own brunet-with-average-figure way. Luke was a celibate by force and suffering every moment of it. A chipmunk could turn him on.

He glimpsed a fair thigh and his heart somersaulted in his chest. He gritted his teeth and shifted his gaze before he was tempted to touch. He allowed the yellow aura to draw his attention to the carrier. Like an angel, the baby napped, chubby cheeks glistening with something sticky.

Will you be able to do it?
Celestine asked.

Luke wondered the same. This was a mere infant, what if he stabbed too hard? He wasn’t even sure the same possession and exorcism rules applied here. His hands felt clammy, a bad taste filled his mouth, and a nauseating feeling nettled in his chest, burning.

Changed, the woman paused. She regarded her son tenderly, a soft smile stretching her lips. Mothers did that at times. Somehow, and for some unknown reason, they would stare in adoration at their children. Moments of tenderness, Luke called them. Unfortunately, he didn’t think he enjoyed many. His father had skipped ship during the pregnancy, leaving his mother to struggle to secure their next meal. She had no time to squander gazing at him. Luke squeezed his eyes shut on the memory of his mother’s slow lumber after his empty casket. No mother should bury her child. It broke her heart and spirit and she didn’t live much longer after his funeral, passing away in her sleep. Her broken heart had stopped trying to mend itself after his death.

Now in the dressing room, the woman bent to her sleeping baby and pecked his cheek. Her sleeveless white dress embellished with small roses fell below her knees, hugging her figure where it counted. Since it was a summer dress, its neckline did a poor job of hiding her cleavage.

Focus, Luke admonished himself and squeezed his eyes shut. He would do his best not to harm the baby and break the mother’s heart.

I need you
, he called upon the power in him, the Spirit Within.

At hearing her step out of the room, Luke opened his eyes. She was in front of the room, her attention on her reflection in the mirrors fitted outside. As she stepped closer to the mirrors, she disappeared beyond the half-open curtain.

I believe someone is waking up,
Celestine whispered in his head.

Indeed, the infant smacked his lips together and slowly opened his eyes. Like any guiltless baby, he blinked around, innocently until his gaze landed on paled-Luke. Angelic face turned ferocious and red rimmed the irises. Despite the baby’s aggressive expression, Luke hesitated.

As though he read his mind, Celestine said,
This is the same as other extractions you performed. Make the stab swift and true while keeping your hand light.