Something Wicked (21 page)

With an effort, he went back to his memories. The hot, liquid warmth of Kristina St. Cloud surrounded him, and he could hear her in his mind, moaning and screaming and begging. He climbed atop the bitch in his bed and screwed her hard.

Unfortunately, afterward, he felt more anxious than he had before he started, and as she stretched and regarded him languidly, as if she thought she'd been amazing in the sack, Charlie turned away and picked up the remote, clicking on the late news.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He didn't answer, just channel surfed around. There should be something on Kristina's condition by now, he figured.

Catching sight of the shingled siding of the Rib-I, Charlie stopped his surfing.
Good.
At least there was more on his first kills of the week. A male reporter was describing the scene from outside the restaurant two nights earlier. Two people murdered.
Garth and Tammie.
Charlie watched with a distant fascination as the reporter stood in the driving snow and urged anyone who'd seen anything to come forward. For a heart-stopping moment he thought of DeWitt, sitting in the Rib-I like a spider in his web, a drunken spider, but nonetheless ready to spin a web of words as he talk, talk, talked....

“Damn you,” she suddenly snarled, throwing back the covers and stomping naked to the bathroom.

Charlie barely noticed. His mind was now traveling back to Tammie and Garth, reliving those moments when he'd looked in their eyes, watching the light disappear into nothingness. He felt himself stir to life again, and even with the sex he'd just had, he suddenly wanted to masturbate. Now he wanted her, and of course, the bitch was locked in the bathroom.

But he could be so persuasive.

Rapping on the door panels, he said lightly, “Come outta there. Mr. Happy wants to see you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, c'mon, baby.” He was suddenly hot all over. This was what it was supposed to feel like. This was what Kristina had done for him, what Chandra had almost managed, though she'd been a bit of a cold fish.

Chandra Donatella . . .

He'd called her first that night, told her to meet him at their house. He liked the idea that it was edging toward the rim of the bluff. The vision of it being sucked into the sea got him going sexually. But Chandra had taken her sweet time in getting there. Growing impatient, he'd then sent a hot, seductive message to Kristina, who could pick up his radar like she was standing next to him. He sent her the image of a gun. Her handgun, the one she'd told him she'd bought for protection. Protection, ha. He'd understood, even if she hadn't, that she'd bought it because of him, because of the fear he churned inside her, which she was powerless to fight. He'd thought the gun might be an interesting sex toy.

Kristina had shown up with it in her purse, and he'd pulled it out and waggled it in front of her eyes. They were role-playing, and things were just getting interesting, with Kristina precariously balanced on a couple of kitchen chairs and him on top of her, when there was the scrape of a key in the front lock and Chandra suddenly burst in, practically panting with desire. Charlie had the gun in his hand, and for a split second he thought maybe he could talk them both into a threesome, when Chandra's husband, Marcus, came in behind her like a charging bull.

He stopped at the sight of the gun leveled at his chest.

Naked, Charlie had calmly told Marcus to take the chairs and set them in the living room. Then he had Chandra and Marcus sit on them. Marcus tried to argue with him, but Charlie had the weapon. A gun wasn't as intimate as a knife, but it sure as hell commanded respect, and no amount of double-talk from the goddamned high-and-mighty Marcus Donatella was going to convince Charlie to stop. In fact . . .

His date suddenly threw open the bathroom door, knocking into him. “Shit!” he snapped, good and pissed.

“Get out,” she ordered.

“Ah . . . no . . . let's make up.” Suddenly Charlie was feeling really horny. The more they fought his power, the better it was. He reached for her arm, and when she yanked it back, he laughed, grabbed her around the waist, and tossed her back on the bed.

She quickly scrambled up to a sitting position, folding her arms over her bare breasts. “Don't you dare touch me!”

“You don't mean that. . . .”

“You can just watch your goddamn TV and leave me the fuck alone.”

He chuckled. “Now you're gonna get it,” he singsonged, and she glared at him.

“I'm really mad,” she said.

“Are you?”

“Yes!”

A challenge. Charlie quickly worked his magic, sending out his sexual pheromones. She tried to resist; she really did. But it didn't take long for her to crumble, and he sent his mind back to the Donatellas again to increase his enjoyment as he mounted her. The terror on Chandra's face . . . Marcus begging for his wife's life . . . Kristina in the background, crying and wringing her hands and saying he couldn't do it, he couldn't, it was all a game, and then
blast, blast
, shooting them both in the back of the head and Kristina screaming and screaming and screaming until he grabbed her by the hair and screwed her hard against the wall again while she clawed at him like a wild woman. She lost it a little after that, went into this weird state of denial where she would not admit to herself that she'd watched him execute her friends. She simply would not believe it, and though every time they had sex, he would press his lips to her ear and croon to her that she was his, that she was part of it now, that she had helped kill them, too, she would say it was sorcery. Nothing had happened.

Her denial worked like an aphrodisiac on Charlie. When he thought about her burning, liquid warmth . . . and that cool refusal to accept the truth . . . he felt like he could burst!

He came back to the present with a bang. Realized he was jamming hard and fast into his date, and she was in the throes of a mega-climax and was screaming like she was going to die of pleasure.
Well, all right! Finally. A real response.
He gave a couple of last, good thrusts and then came himself, filled with expanding pleasure, distantly thinking that it was good, but maybe not quite good enough....

Another reason to wait to kill her. Had to make sure his semen wasn't anywhere near her when she met her maker.

He propped himself above her on his elbows and stared down at her. “Good?”

“I hate you,” she said peevishly, her chest still heaving, her eyes glistening.

He smiled and sent her his swirling sexual thoughts. Then he put his hands lightly around her neck. “I'm gonna kill you,” he whispered in her ear, “with love. . . .”

He was still inside her, and he hardened again, moving more tenderly. She tried to resist, she really did, but she couldn't, of course. Soon enough her hands were clawing his arms and she was moaning.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, watching the conflicting messages on her face as she futilely fought his magic love potion. She came again, and with both regret and relief he pulled away from her, staring at the ceiling, wondering how soon he could leave.

He wished he could have had sex with his mother before he killed her. And he wished he'd actually killed that other mother, the one who'd been so sorry she'd adopted him, but she'd beat him to it.

He felt anger lick through him again, just thinking about that bitch. He'd seen the look on her face. How
sorry
she'd been that she'd ever let him in her house. And he'd heard her on the phone to her friends, talking about him, about how he wasn't right. Saying she should have known better. “After all, he's from that strange cult,” she'd said softly into the receiver, but he'd been able to read lips from an early age. He could read
her.
He'd pulled her in with his power and screwed her sideways, and she'd looked up at him through glazed, horror-struck eyes, and then . . . and then she'd run off and
killed
herself!
Bitch!
Damn, but it pissed him off.

Afterward, her husband hadn't known what to do with him, the adopted son he didn't want. He kinda thought maybe he should put him in foster care, but Charlie wasn't having any of that. He left three days after her suicide. He'd always known he had a special power, but now he knew what to do with it. There were other women, lots and lots of other women, just aching for what he could give 'em. And he gave it to them—the best they'd ever had in their miserable lives—and for a few years he moved back and forth across the country, doing just enough work to get by, stealing from the parade of women he serviced whenever he needed to, sensing there was some purpose out there that he hadn't yet discovered.

And then he'd felt the irresistible pull—deep in his organs—from Mother Mary. She'd called to him from Echo Island, and he'd had one helluva time negotiating his way to her, all the while hearing her laughing in his head, but also her begging:
Come to me. Save me. I'm here. Waiting for you.

He'd gone to the island—he damn well could hardly do anything else—and she'd started spinning her spell, wrapping him in it. She wanted off the island. There was work to be done. She needed him to help her. But Charlie wasn't really interested in helping her. All he wanted to do was screw her and maybe learn something about where he came from, but she wouldn't touch him, and she wouldn't give him much beyond his father's name. Good old Pops, the bastard. He would take care of him in time, too.

Charlie had boldly told his mother that he was the only one who counted, and she'd cackled her amusement and said he was an ignorant ass, just like his father. “There are more,” she'd then warned him with a thin, cold smile. “More?” he'd asked. “More of us that are stronger than you,” she'd assured him. “The ones we need to conquer.”

He didn't believe in the “we” part of her plan, but he let her go on because he still thought he could get past her defenses and give her a heaping dose of Good Time Charlie, but it didn't happen. And then he caught her writing things down, things about him and them and what needed to be done. She was sly, hiding her words away, but he knew about them, and he also knew he had to find them. He didn't want anything written down that somebody else could find, so he started searching through her things the moment the light died in her eyes and she was staring through blank, glassy orbs toward the ceiling. He found nothing but her herbs, which she'd dried and put in jars. He was getting really pissed at her—
what did you write, bitch?
—when warning bells went off in his head. Someone out there. One of them, the ones she'd talked about. He could feel the prickle of
her
search for
him
as if it were tangible against his skin.

Who? A lover who hadn't yet revealed herself to him? He tried to send her a mental message, but she didn't respond. He'd tried off and on ever since, but whoever it was was biding their time. Playing coy.

Choking sounds woke him from his reverie, and he saw that his date's eyes were bugging, her hands plucking frantically at his taut fingers circling her neck. He had somehow grabbed her neck in his reverie and was squeezing and squeezing, and squeezing a little more. Immediately, he released her.

She gasped and spit and shrieked, “You goddamn maniac! Get the fuck out!”

“I didn't mean to do that,” he admitted honestly.

She slapped at his hand when he tried to smooth her hair. Then she slapped at his arms and head, until he had to pin her arms down before she did some real damage. It was time to move on. Loose ends needed to be taken care of. Twisting away from her, he grabbed up his clothes, dragging them on.

“What are you doing? Where are you going?” she demanded.

“Getting the fuck out, like you asked me so nicely.”

When he walked out the door, he heard something slam against it from the other side. Her shoe probably. For all their protestations, they never could get enough.

Sometimes it was almost a hardship.

Snow was falling fast, covering everything. He stood for a moment on her front step, his expression hardening as Good Time Charlie disappeared beneath another persona, the one he loved best, the one closest to his real self.

Time to take care of business.

Closing his eyes, he stood on the sidewalk in front of her building in the falling snow and whipping wind and went inside himself, drawing on his power. He sent a message to Pops, just because he could, the fucker, and then he reached out for the one again. The lover who'd contacted him on Echo Island. The one who'd scared him into leaving before he could find Mary's writings. He could practically feel her slide away from him, eely and just out of reach.

I'm coming for you.
He sent the message with all the strength of his sexual power. He knew it was one of them. One of the ones Mary wanted him to destroy.
I'm coming for you.

And then suddenly a message came back, filling his brain so fast and hot that he jerked physically, as if struck:
I'm way ahead of you.

Charlie looked around wildly at the snow-covered streets. A game? Way ahead of him?
No way!

Who the fuck are you?
he sent back.

But though he listened with every fiber, muscle, and cell of his being, waiting in the darkness as snow melted on his hair and skin, there was no answer. All he could hear and feel was the moaning rise and fall of the wind.

With fury burning through his veins, he stomped toward his snow-covered truck, ready for the next chapter. He was going to kill them all.