Page 40 of Dance With the Devil (Dark-Hunter 3)
It just didn't seem right.
Jess went to take another drink of his coffee only to realize it had already chilled.
"I hate Alaska," he mumbled, tossing the coffee to the ground and then wadding up the cup.
Before he could find a trash can, his cell phone rang.
He checked the caller ID to see that it was Justin Carmichael, one of the Blood Rites Squires who was up here hunting for Zarek. It seemed once the Oracles got wind that Artemis and Dionysus wanted Zarek dead, they had immediately notified the Council, who in turn had sent out the orneriest bunch of Blood Rite Squires to hunt and kill the rogue Dark-Hunter.
Jess was all that stood between them and Zarek.
Born and raised in New York City, Justin was a younger man, about twenty-four, with a nasty attitude Jess didn't care for much.
He answered the call. "Yeah, Carmichael, whatcha need?"
"We have a problem."
"And that would be?"
"You know the woman who was helping Zarek? Sharon?"
"What about her?"
"We just found her. She was beaten up pretty bad and her house has been burned to the ground. My money says it's Zarek bent on revenge."
Jess's blood went cold. "Bullshit. Did you talk to her?"
"Trust me, she wasn't in any condition to talk when we found her. She's with the doctors right now and we're headed back to Zarek's cabin to see if we can find that bastard and make him pay for this before he hurts anyone else."
"What about Sharon's daughter?"
"She was staying at a neighbor's house when it happened. Thank God. I've got Mike watching over her in case Zarek comes calling again."
Jess couldn't breathe and it wasn't from the frozen bite in the air. How could this have happened? Unlike the Squires, he knew Zarek didn't have any part in this.
He alone knew where Zarek really was.
Ash had trusted him with the truth of what was going on and had charged him with making sure no one fubarred it until Zarek's test was over.
Well, things just went further south than a herd of geese in the fall.
"Don't move until I get there," he told the Squire. "I want to go to his cabin with you."
"Why? You planning on getting in our way again when we take him down?"
Those words rubbed him like a herd of porcupines. "Boy, you better take that tone and flush it. I'm not a Squire you're talking to; I happen to be one of the guys you answer to. It ain't none of your damned business why I'm going. You just don't move until I tell you to or I'm going to show you how I once made Wyatt Earp piss his drawers."
Carmichael hesitated before he spoke again. When he did, his voice was nice and cool. "Yes, sir. We're at the hotel and are waiting for you."
Jess hung up the phone and returned it to his pocket.
He felt awful about Sharon. She shouldn't have been in any danger at all. None of the Squires would have dared hurt her.
And in spite of what the others thought, he knew Zarek wouldn't have done it even if he'd been able to.
Zarek just didn't strike him as the type to go after those weaker than him.
But then, who else would have dared?
Astrid found Zarek alone in the center of a burned-down medieval village.
There were bodies, burned and unburned, scattered everywhere. Male and female. Every age. Most of them had torn throats as if a Daimon or some similar creature had fed off them.
Zarek walked among them, his face grim. His eyes tormented.
He had his arms wrapped around himself as if to protect him from the horror he was witnessing.
"Where are we?" she asked.
To her shock, he answered "Taberleigh."
"Taberleigh?"
"My village," he whispered, his voice angst-ridden and tight. "I lived here for three hundred years. There was this one old crone who saw me once when she was a young girl. She used to leave me things from time to time. A leg of dried mutton, a wineskin of ale. Sometimes nothing more than a note to say thank you for watching over them." He looked at Astrid, his face haunted. "I was supposed to protect them."
Before she could ask him what had happened to the village, she heard the muffled cries of an old woman.
Zarek bolted toward her.
The woman lay on the ground wrapped in torn clothes, her old body broken. She was covered in blood and bruises.
Astrid could tell by Zarek's expression that this was the woman he had spoken of.
Zarek fell to his knees beside her and wiped the blood from her lips as she straggled to breathe.
The woman's old gray eyes were piercing with accusation as they focused on him. "How could you?"
The life faded from the crone's eyes, turning them dull, glazed.
She went limp in his arms.
Zarek bellowed with rage. He released the woman and pushed himself to his feet. He paced a wide circle, raking his hands angrily through his hair.
Panting, he looked every bit as insane as everyone claimed.
Astrid hurt for him. She didn't understand what this was about. What he was reliving.
She followed him. "Zarek, what happened here?"
His face anguished, he turned around to confront her. Hatred and guilt burned in the midnight depths of his eyes.
He swept his arm out to indicate the bodies around them. "I killed them. All of them." The words came out as if torn from his throat. "I don't know why I did this. I just remember the rage, the craving for blood. I don't even remember killing them. Just flashes of people dying as they came near me."
His face was bleak. His eyes filled with self-loathing. "I am a monster. Do you see now why I can't have you? Why I can't stay with you? What if one day I killed you, too?"
Her chest constricted at his words as true panic and fear engulfed her.
Had she misjudged him?
"All men are guilty." It was her sister Atty's favorite saying. "The only honest men are those infants who haven't yet learned to speak lies." ,
Horrified, Astrid looked around at the dead bodies...
Could he really have been capable of something like this?
She didn't know what to think now. Whoever was responsible for this slaughter did deserve to die. It more than explained why Artemis wouldn't want him around people.
Astrid paused at that thought.
Wait a minute...
Something was wrong.
Dead wrong.
Astrid looked at the bodies around them. Human bodies. Some of them children, most of them women.
Had Zarek done this, Acheron would have killed him instantly. Acheron refused to tolerate anyone who preyed on the weak and defenseless. And especially anyone who harmed a child.
