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Authors: Rita Herron

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BOOK: Insatiable Desire
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Laughter bubbled in his parched throat. But killing the women and stealing their souls was a minor part of the larger picture. He’d specifically pinpointed the town where Vincent Valtrez had been raised, because he knew the local sheriff would call him.

And he’d chosen Clarissa King to taunt with the voices of the dead, because she was Valtrez’s Achilles’ heel.

As a boy, Valtrez had protected her from his father. She would be the perfect means to trap Vincent.

Pan had already pressed his hand to her and knew her greatest fear: that the dead she communed with would drive her insane. He would target her friends for his kills, then use their voices to torment her.

He raised his black palm and began to chant, to summon the demons to torture her:

“I call to you,

Spirits far and wide,

Rise from the dead

To the medium’s side.

Let your cries

Fill her head

So she may join

You and the dead.”

If Valtrez still had a weakness for the woman, when she broke, he would try to save her.

Then Pan would turn the Dark Lord and bring him to the new master.

CHAPTER TWO

V
incent picked up the phone, turning his back on the woman as she dressed and let herself out. “Valtrez.”

“It’s McLaughlin. Sorry to disturb you, man, but you’ve got an assignment.”

“Where to?”

“A small town in the Smoky Mountains, Eerie, Tennessee. The local sheriff is recovering from a mild heart attack and requested our help, specifically yours. He thinks he has a serial killer in the hills, and the chief wants you to get up there first thing tomorrow.”

The Tennessee mountains. Shit, that was the last place he ever wanted to go back to.

“Why me?”

“Because you grew up there. You understand the town, the area, the people.” McLaughlin coughed. “Said something about you going into the Black Forest and coming out alive. That no one else ever had.”

Vincent rubbed a hand over his bleary eyes. Hell, yeah, he’d survived, but he’d blocked out what had happened inside the forest.

But he knew evil lived in the mountains and that his father had been a violent man.

Maybe it was time he did return, put his past to rest. He had a nagging feeling the blackouts he’d experienced lately had something to do with that hellhole he’d grown up in. With the memories he’d repressed . . .

“Valtrez? You listening?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “How many murders so far?”

“Two.” McLaughlin hesitated. “Although the MOs are different, Valtrez. They don’t appear to be related. The first one is a drowning victim, the second, multiple spider bites.”

“Why does he think the spider bites are murder?”

“There were multiple bites.” McLaughlin hesitated. “Dozens and dozens, as if someone had planted the spiders in the woman’s bed.”

Vincent chewed the inside of his cheek, conceding that sounded suspicious. “What makes this sheriff think the deaths are connected?”

McLaughlin hesitated again.

“Spill it, McLaughlin. What am I up against? Some small-town morons?”

A wry chuckle rumbled over the line. “Maybe. This guy claims their resident town psychic told him the women are being murdered.”

Vincent scrubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “Don’t tell me. Her name is Clarissa King.”

“How’d you know?”

Shit. “Everyone in the area knows about her family.” A childhood memory taunted him. Clarissa had been tiny and frail-looking in her homemade checkered dress. They’d forged an odd, awkward friendship.

One day the kids had picked on him at school, and she’d taken up for him. He’d told her he didn’t need her help and stormed away. But she was a stubborn little thing and had followed him home.

Humiliation washed over him. His father had found him wearing the angel amulet, yelled at him that it was for girls, and had ripped it off his neck. Then his father had caught Clarissa looking through the window and had snatched her up. Vincent had stepped in the middle to protect her. His father had laughed, shoved her outside, and told her not to come back—then he’d beaten Vincent senseless.

“Look at it this way,” McLaughlin said, interrupting his thoughts. “You can meet with the sheriff, brush him off, then relax in the mountains for the weekend. Maybe go fishing.”

Vincent laughed sardonically. He didn’t want to relax. Hell, he couldn’t. The only pastime he had other than work was screwing women.

His gaze zeroed in on the blood the woman had drawn from his arm when he’d fucked her.

Bad
blood,
bad
blood,
bad
blood . . . He’d inherited it from his father.

He couldn’t change what he was. A bad-to-the-bone bastard. He wouldn’t make excuses for it, either.

First thing tomorrow, before he headed to Tennessee, he’d stop by BloodCore, that research center, and offer a sample for analysis. They were researching deviant and abhorrent behavior, searching for genetic markers to pinpoint and predict tendencies toward aggression, violence, and criminal behavior, specifically in sociopaths and serial killers.

All in hopes of finding a cure, so doctors could change a person’s genetic makeup to alter that behavior.

He hoped to hell they found one. Vincent would be first in line for treatment. It might be the only thing that could save him.

An icy chill engulfed Clarissa. This morning she’d heard another cry. The woman’s spirit hadn’t gained enough energy to materialize yet, but Clarissa had been tormented by her distinctive wail of terror in the predawn hour. Wulf had heard it, too, and howled in recognition.

She’d phoned Sheriff Waller immediately and asked him if anyone in town had been reported missing. So far, nothing.

But they would. Her premonitions rarely failed her.

As if Clarissa had summoned the spirits, a chill in the air swirled around her, a hint of jasmine mingling with the humidity.

In the shadows of the woods behind her property, a ghostly image drifted toward her, then shimmered inside against the knotty-pine-paneled walls. Its tormented mass filled the silence with shock and the trauma of just being taken.

She recognized the spirit immediately. Billie Jo Rivers, a teller at the bank. She’d drowned in Redtail Creek three days ago.

Now, she stood pale-faced, a white skeleton with soaking wet clothes, drenched tangled hair, mud-stained limbs, and distorted features, lost in her own bed of horrors.

Clarissa wanted to reach out and hug her in comfort, but that was impossible. But she could help find her killer so Billie Jo could cross into the light.

Beside Billie Jo, another spirit appeared, shimmering against the darkness. This one, twenty-five-year-old church director Jamie Lackey. Her pale green eyes stared back, gaunt with pain and terror in her skeleton. Swollen and discolored patches marred her body, and her black hair swirled around her face, wild and tangled, a half-dozen brown recluse spiders crawling through the tresses, others spinning a web on her arms and legs.

Clarissa shivered. She had to help the girls. Had to convince Vincent that she was telling the truth. That the people of Eerie needed help. That a monster was here, preying on women. But how?

“I need more from you,” she pleaded into the darkness. “Some clue, something I can tell the police to help them find out what happened to you.”

Both women’s spirits reached for her with outstretched brittle fingers, but when they tried to speak, only a strangled sound of agony pierced the air. It was too soon. They needed more time to acclimate into their astral spirits; then they would be able to communicate.

Exhausted, and knowing she needed her strength for the next day, Clarissa climbed in bed, then closed her eyes and silently willed the spirits to rest and let her sleep. She didn’t want to see them anymore tonight. To hear their shrieks of terror.

But hysterical laughter bubbled in her chest as she felt the whisper of the spirits’ breaths on her neck. Their cackles of agony splintered the silence. She’d
never
be free of them. No matter where she’d run these past few years or how hard she’d tried to escape, the spirits begged her to listen.

Outside, the clouds shifted to hide the moon, and a sea of darkness engulfed the room, the whisper of more danger breathing through the air. In less than a month the eclipse would occur.

The time when demons rose to wreak havoc.

The people of Eerie had to be ready. Her destiny lay in helping those who needed her.

Even if it meant she would be alone forever.

And that she’d end up hanging from the Devil’s Tree just like her mother.

Fear clawed at Tracy Canton. She was going to die here in the woods, alone where no one would find her.

Bugs nibbled at her flesh, and tears rolled down her cheeks, mingling with the sweat and blood running down her face. Blood the monster who’d attacked her had smeared on her after digging the knife into her wrists.

She’d tried to scream for help, but the sound had died in her throat, as if her voice was paralyzed, just like her body.

One touch of his hand and she had been immobilized by fear.

How had he done that? Why? God, why? She was too young to die.

She squeezed her eyes shut, tried to remember why she’d climbed in the car with him. Her car had broken down . . . she’d needed a ride. She knew him, had trusted him. His eyes had been kind.

Nothing like the evil of the hideous creature mauling her now.

Pine needles stabbed her back and head as he pressed his weight on her with one knee and twisted the knife into her thigh. She gasped, inhaling his rancid breath as pain exploded in her leg. Unable to scream, she shook with sobs, trying desperately to fight him, but her limbs refused to cooperate. Instead, she lay like a limp doll below him, helpless to stop him from carving her into pieces.

He waved the knife in front of her, the bloody tip glinting with drops of crimson. Her body spasmed with nausea. Through the fog, his eyes turned a yellow, ghoulish color, piercing her. Then he flicked a drop of blood with his finger and painted her lips with the sticky substance.

She gagged, choking on the coppery taste as the world spun sickeningly. Knowing she was going to pass out, she closed her eyes again, praying for him to end this torture.

Despair and sadness washed over her. Yesterday her entire life had loomed in front of her. She wanted to get married one day. Have babies. Attend college.

None of that was going to happen.

He plunged the knife into her shoulder, and her body jerked in agony. In a last-ditch effort to save herself, she silently begged him to let her go.

But his vile laughter echoed off the mountain as he raised the blood-soaked knife again and sliced her throat. Blood gurgled and spewed, her choked scream dying in the air.

Finally, the black abyss of death swallowed her.

CHAPTER THREE

Five days until the rising

V
incent studied the questionnaire at BloodCore, debating how much information to reveal. If the bureau discovered he was here, they’d ask questions.

Questions he didn’t want to answer.

Maybe it had been a mistake to come.

“Mr. Valtrez?” A slender female doctor who looked to be in her midthirties approached him. “Hi, I’m Dr. Marlena Bender. Come this way.”

Shoulders rigid, he followed her into a small laboratory, where she proceeded to explain the project in more detail.

“This research is privately funded, and it’s one of my personal pet projects,” she said. “The age-old question of nature versus nurture. It especially intrigues me, as I was a product of a rape myself and feared that my genetic father passed his violent tendencies on to me. I’ve always struggled with that fear and decided to make it my life’s work.”

Vincent relaxed slightly.

“I’m sharing my story because most patients in the study are reluctant to reveal their histories. But rest assured, your records and tests will be kept strictly confidential.” She explained how she used encrypted codes to prevent hackers from accessing the data. Feeling marginally better, he admitted that his father had been abusive and had murdered his mother.

“It’s admirable that you’ve chosen to be a federal agent,” she said. “Seems we’re both fighting our pasts. Just think, if we could pinpoint genetic markers to identify aggression, tendencies toward violent behavior, and mental disorders, we could test fetuses or newborns and treat them early on and possibly eradicate criminal behavior.”

Her enthusiasm seemed sincere, although Vincent doubted they’d ever be able to prevent criminal behavior completely. There were too many variables.

“The agency is not aware that I’m participating in this,” he said. “My anonymity has to be kept.”

“Absolutely.” She arranged several test tubes on the counter, tied the tourniquet around his arm, and inserted the needle. He stared at his blood as it flowed through the tubing, his anxiety mounting.

Was violence genetic? Had he inherited his father’s violent tendencies?

Worse, would he someday succumb to the darkness within him and let it consume him, as his father had?

The graveyard always drew the ghosts.

Clarissa tried to avoid it, but her family was here, and she forced herself to visit and bring flowers at least once a week.

She’d been awake half the night, haunted by Billie Jo and Jamie’s whimpers. She had no room in her cluttered mind for the other spirits rising from their graves, crying out for her.

A scraping sound jarred her, and she pivoted, then noticed Hadley Crane digging a grave for a burial. Probably Jamie Lackey’s.

As if he sensed her watching, Hadley lifted his gaze to her and tipped his baseball hat. She flicked her hand up in greeting. Although he was nice-looking, he’d always seemed strange, talking to himself constantly.

Of course, most people thought she was strange, too.

Shaking off the thought, she knelt, gently placed the flowers in the respective vases. Needing solace from someone who understood her, she summoned her grandmother’s spirit.

BOOK: Insatiable Desire
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