Ocean Kills (Ocean Breeze) (5 page)

Frowning, I looked for the voice. A small communication panel crackled as I pressed a button to respond. This was new. Looking directly into the small security camera staring me in the face, I said, “Open up, Maurice. Don't make me lurk on your doorstep dressed in these clothes.”

He chuckled, and the door clicked open.

Stepping over the threshold, the house seemed to sigh and hug me with its dark paneling, faded oriental rugs, and a welcoming musty smell. Crap, it had been too long. Way, way too long. Me and my stubborn pride.

“Come in here!”

Was he in a grump or excited? I couldn’t tell. If he was mad, I supposed it was fair for how I left last time. Still didn't stop me from shaking my head at the command. For a whippet of a man, Maurice was bossier than the queen.

I followed his voice toward the drawing room brimming with porcelain figurines and trinkets. The exposed redbrick fireplace roared with heat. The cognac colored walls glistened with a fine layer of coal dust. Maurice did his best with housework, but a renovation was in dire need.

“My dear! I can't believe it. You're here. You're back.” Maurice's weathered face glowed as he motioned for me to come closer. Perhaps he wasn't angry after all. His legs were encased in a tartan quilt and his old sheepdog, Tessie, was sprawled on his feet. Two old codgers—they were as grey as each other.

Maurice sported a new comb-over, which made me chuckle, but the rest of him was sprightly. Vibrant eyes and glowing skin spoke of happiness and health. I kissed his powdery cheek, inhaling deeply. If it wasn't for old people and newborns, talcum powder factories would have gone out of business years ago.

“Hello, Maurice.” I smiled, very aware of the tightness in my chest. My emotions continued to be traitorous against my strict orders to remain icy cold. My heart didn't like to be locked in a fridge around Maurice. “I'm sorry it's been so long. Life got in the way. . .” What a pathetic excuse. Life never used to get in the way of visiting this man I loved as a father. My own pitiful fear kept me away. Fear of what I was becoming.

He squeezed my hand. “Don't fret, child. Come, sit down. Tell me everything.” Maurice's bushy white eyebrows rose. “You look thin and tired. How fares the hunt?” His clear hazel eyes were knife-sharp.

Maurice was the only person who knew what I did. Apart from the cop who I'd told my deepest, darkest secret to before disappearing, of course. I wanted to groan at my stupidity.
Why, oh why did I do that?

Maurice found me when I was fourteen. I’d been hunched over a male corpse with a stolen steak knife in my hand. It had been my first kill; I'd been sloppy. Instead of reporting me, Maurice bundled me into a black Jag and ferreted me away in his historical house.

Our first conversation had been interesting. He didn't blame me for killing the man. He'd heard the news, assumed I was a victim and it was self-defense. I allowed him to think that for a week, before his empathy and acceptance thawed a small part of me. Finally, I admitted: I hunted and killed the man. I wanted to stop him from hurting others.

In the middle of our heart-to-heart, I teleported by accident. Emotions were a hair trigger for me. Dangerous. However, I didn't go far. It only took me a couple of hours to find his house again. I didn't know why I returned to Maurice. He knew my secrets—he was a liability. But he touched me in a way no one had before or since, and I loved him. I wouldn't have survived, nor grown into the person I was, without his help and guidance.

“The hunt went as well as can be expected,” I hedged. I kept the gore from him. He didn't need to know the graphic details.

Maurice eyed my garb. “You were bait again, weren't you? How many times do I need to tell you, Ocean. It's too dangerous to lure men with your body. You should sulk in the shadows and attack as a ghost.”

He was absolutely perfect. Any other person would’ve handcuffed me to the bed and reported me to an insane asylum.

I pinched his cheek. I knew how he hated it. “I am a ghost. How many people do you know who are like me?”

A gloss of pain filled his eyes as he patted my hand on his cheek. “None, child. You are unusual with your gift, but you must learn to let your past go. It will come back to haunt you otherwise.”

I straightened. “First, my gift is also a curse. And second, I
have
let go of my past, but I'll never be able to erase it completely.” My soul shattered that day, and in the left over pieces seeped the blood of my parents and brother. “It's not a simple task of
washing
it away, Maurice. I take my vengeance on perpetrators of other crimes.”

“And what of your promise? That you will stop when you find the men who took your innocence?”

Ah, yes. That freakin' promise. Maurice had bargained with me. He’d tolerate me killing, but only until I found the two men who ripped my life away. When that toll was paid, I was to stop my murderous ways. It was a condition I agreed to, but never intended to keep. I couldn't stop killing, couldn't stop purging the world of monsters. I couldn’t let more victims suffer if there was anything I could to do prevent it.

“I’ll keep my promise. But the chances of finding those two men are slim. We both know that.” Was that my attempt at gaining his approval to keep killing?

Maurice shook his head and stood. The tartan quilt fell onto his dog; she didn't seem to mind. Maurice shuffled toward the fireplace and lifted the lid of a small copper box sitting on the mantle. He removed a piece of paper and handed it to me.

I frowned, unfolding the newspaper article.

Him!
Oh my God.
Him.

My heart lurched into my mouth as I froze. Eyes of a soul swallowed by evil stared back. I knew those eyes: they lurked in my nightmares. I’d never forget them. How could I forget one of my rapists? I swallowed against the acidic taste of hatred.

He was older. Face lined and furrowed, his hair a grease-ball of ink. He was skinny—if I didn't know any better, I'd say he was disease-ridden. A disease of the soul for the atrocity he'd committed.

I choked, “How?” My eyes were seared by the image. Him.
The devil
. The man who stole my family. “The police said there was no way of identifying them.” I was eight, and traumatized. They wouldn’t listen to a blood-splattered child and her adamant descriptions of the psychopaths.

“The neighbors saw. They spoke to the police, but the sketch artist never lodged his drawings.”

Heat boiled in my stomach. I had trouble breathing
. “What?”

“I pulled a lot of strings. Used favors that were owed to me, and managed to get the two drawings.”

Maurice had more secrets than me. I still didn't know much of his past. Favors? From who? Did it matter? He’d identified the two men I desperately wanted to kill.

“Show me the two drawings,” I demanded. The newspaper clipping shook in my hands. I wanted to shred it to pieces, but I stuffed it in my mini-skirt pocket instead. It wouldn’t leave my side until he was dead.

Maurice gave me a long look before nodding and disappearing into the kitchen. By the time he appeared with a portfolio and placed it in my hands, my breathing was erratic. Oh God. Why did it take so long for identification? What I held represented years and years of guilt, hatred, and anguish.

“I’ve only been able to track down one name. The man in the newspaper is Adrian Mathieu. It will take me a little longer to discover the other.”

It was such a simple, normal name. I wanted something like Cut-throat Bastard Child-Molester. My surroundings were sucked into a vortex as I looked upon the faces of my two rapists and my family's killers.

The unnamed perpetrator was plump. Heavy-set jaw and bags under his watery eyes. But the vacant, evil stare was the same. It was imprinted onto my eyelids. I saw them every night as I tried to sleep, never knowing who or why. The memories ghosted me every moment, of every day.

Finally, I had a name.

“You promised if I helped find them, you would stop. I'm calling in that promise,” Maurice said. His tone was stern, eyes never leaving mine.

I glared. “How can you ask me to stop when monsters ruin lives every second? It's my duty to purge the world. Why else do I have this gift?” I balanced precariously on the edge of panic. I couldn’t see past my anger at the thought of stopping. Seeing those murderous eyes again sent me reeling back to the broken eight-year-old I'd been. Fury turned my fear to stone. I welcomed it. I was no longer that little girl. I was strong: an angel of death.

And I would find them.

I jerked the article from my pocket. Adrian Mathieu was in Perth, or had been three months ago. He was spotted at the local supermarket, of all places. Living as a normal human being, rather than the devil he was. The only reason he was in the paper was due to a bunch of unpaid parking tickets. The local council tried to shame him into paying. I shuddered. He lived while my family rotted. Bastard. 

Maurice interrupted my thoughts. “Look in the mirror, Ocean.”

My face scrunched. I had no intention of looking in the mirror. I knew what I would see. Ebony eyes, instead of my usual sapphire blue. Skin, which used to glow with youthfulness, now tired and muted. A body graced with killer curves, but slowly, stark angles were replacing the roundness of my hips, stealing the fullness from my bra.

“I don't need to look in the mirror to know I look like a dirty hooker. I just need a shower and some rest, that's all.” A chill darted over my skin at the thought of the black marks scorched into my back. I needed to relax. I'd been hunting for too long. I needed a break.

“And what of the marks? Have they stopped? Increased?” Maurice made to move closer.

I took a hasty step back, fingers gripping my spine. “That's none of your business.”

He shook his head. “It
is
my business. You left because of them. For six months I’ve worried about you. Those marks can't be good, Ocean. And you know that, too. Your skin was marred with three when I last saw you. How many now?”

Damn him for asking. Damn him for caring.

My heart thudded sporadically. “I want a shower. We'll discuss this later.”
Over my dead body.

Maurice sighed, watching me, then added, “Those marks are not to be ignored. I've said my piece so I won't bring it up again, but you must
listen
to your body. You must be careful not to morph into the monsters you hate. Promise me you will end this soon.” He sighed again. “I've kept my word. I've found one of the men responsible for your ruined youth. What you do about it is up to you.”

I knew what I wanted to do. Kill Adrian Mathieu. Slowly.

So much effort; so much struggle. My shoulders fell. A tickle of tears made me afraid. Why was it so hard to keep it together when I was around Maurice? Why did my weaknesses find me here?

Maurice shuffled forward, hugging me with his tiny frame. I towered over him. He'd shrunk since the last time I was here. “Think no more on it. Take a shower. Rest. Tomorrow we’ll work on positive things. Things you have neglected.”

A smile brightened my face. Yes. I liked the sound of that. I loved working for Maurice. I loved the goodness I helped put into the world. “Will you test my French as well? I’m a little rusty.” A memory of Callan Bliss’s shock when I slipped in the sushi restaurant made me scowl. I wasn’t lying when I said I could speak multiple languages.

“Oui.”
He grinned. “And we can run through your Mandarin too, if you like.”

I hugged him again. “You’re the best. Tomorrow, then.”

Chapter Five: Callan

T
he sea was temperate and the sun blobbed on the horizon by the time I dragged my tired ass from the waves. Three hours I spent catching surges of water, three hours to try and get that damn woman out of my head. It didn't work, and now, as I squelched my way up the beach and across the road with my surfboard under my arm, I was grumpy and hungry rather than relaxed.

Surfing never failed to put me in a better mood. My eyes could've been witness to any number of horrible things, and I’d find peace and serenity in the sea.

But no. It didn't bloody happen this time.

I unleashed my surfboard from my ankle and punched in the password to enter my apartment building. It wasn't far from the beach and I was still dripping wet as I climbed the tiled communal staircase. My soggy feet left behind droplets of sea and sand.

In one flat below mine lived a bunch of backpacking girls. The apartment was only one bedroom, and yet five of them crashed there. A few were hot. Very confident in their bodies, not afraid to sun bake topless—which I approved of—or wear little G-string bikini's, which I also approved of. But when they started playing soccer—practically naked—that I couldn't approve of. Some activities should be left to clothes and the imagination.

As I walked past their door, it swung open.

 “Callaaaaan.” Bridget's Brazilian accent was strong. I had no clue if that was her real name. She wore a tight one-piece dress and a ton of jewelry. She'd sink if she went swimming. Her black hair was sprayed within an inch of its life, ready for a night out. “You want to come with us, sexy-surfer boy?” She leaned against the door jamb.