Witch's Net Read online

  “Maybe it's a sloppy copycat you've got on your hands,” Bonner offered, referring to the last serial killer case Jonah and Ronnie had worked. Carter Dunn had been using a blood-thinning agent and a machine to bleed his victims dry before dumping them in parks with what looked like fang holes in their necks. “And Carter Dunn's brother hasn't been captured yet.”

  “No, this is different,” Jonah said, not bothering to add that Curtis had been captured, just not by the police. Jake had taken care of him, which probably meant he was dead. “These vics are being eaten off of. The Dunns didn't do anything remotely like that.”

  “Plus, Carter Dunn only killed females,” Ronnie interjected and although Jonah knew that was incorrect he remained silent. Nobody needed to know how much he knew about Carter Dunn or how he'd retained that information. Hell, he wished he could forget it all.

  “This poor guy appears to have been killed the same way as the rest of them,” Ronnie concluded. “Do we have an ID?”

  “His driver’s license gives his name as David Johns,” a nearby officer stated. “He lived on the other side of town.”

  “Thanks,” Ronnie said. “Were you first on the scene?”

  “Yes, Detective.”

  She rose to question the officer while Jonah remained crouched by the body, wondering what the hell had gotten hold of the unfortunate man. Most of the victims were male and two of the three female vics had turned out to be lesbians. It could mean nothing at all or it could mean everything. They'd come from all areas of Baltimore, different incomes, different professions. The only thing they seemed to have in common was a possible attraction to women, so maybe a woman was luring them to their death.

  Jonah shook his tired head, knowing he was grasping at straws. The other female vic, Joanne Wilson, was a married mother of three and how did he know that any of the males weren't gay just because it hadn't showed up during the investigation yet? He needed to quit thinking of what-ifs and find something concrete.

  He stepped back as the victim was zipped into a bag and put on a gurney, guilt coursing through his body. How many more had to die before he even got a lead?

  He looked over at Ronnie as the M.E. left, and started. The only person left in the room with him was the crime scene photographer who was busy packing up his equipment.

  “I've taken pictures of the body,” the photographer said. “I didn't see any blood splatter anywhere but I can stick around in case you find something that you want photographed.”

  “Where's Ronnie?” Jonah asked, wondering why the photographer even thought he could leave without being dismissed. He'd worked with the guy before and knew he knew the drill.

  “The detective went to investigate other areas,” the photographer said, peering out the window.

  A cold chill ran the length of Jonah's spine as he recalled the woman outside's warning. Shit. Something was wrong here.

  He ran through the lower rooms of the warehouse searching for his partner but each dusty room turned up empty. Then he heard it, a yelp and the sound of something slamming hard against a wall above him. He found the stairs and ran up them toward the sound, with his heart in his throat.

  He reached the top of the stairs and stilled as crazed laughter rent the air. “What the hell?” he whispered as he followed the sound, entering a room to find Ronnie pinned against the wall by the same cop she'd been talking to earlier.

  “Put her down,” he said after aiming his gun at the man's back.

  The cop turned, his face distorted. His eyes glowed yellow and his nose and jaws had elongated into a muzzle filled with sharp teeth which were on full display as he snarled at him.

  “Looks like we found what’s been eating these vics,” Jonah said, purposely keeping his voice calm so Ronnie wouldn't freak out any more than she already was. Her eyes bugged out of her head as tears drenched her cheeks, a scream caught in her throat. The poor woman was about to piss herself which really ticked off Jonah. He'd seen the woman stare death in the eye and not even flinch. Despite the fact she was a total hard-ass with very little sense of humor, he'd built up a great deal of respect for her. This beast was going to die for terrifying her. “Put her down, mutt.”

  The beast snarled at him, tightening its clawed hand around Ronnie's throat until she bled. “You should fear me, human.”

  “You should fear me, bitch.”

  The beast snarled, then chuckled. “Stupid human with your little gun. You know nothing about dealing with my kind.”

  “That's where you're wrong, you ugly bastard. I was taught by the best.” Jonah pulled the trigger, sending a silver-coated bullet into the beast's chest.

  It screamed, its cry sounding like awful, high-pitched laughter as its chest started to burn from the silver. Jonah aimed his gun at the thing's head but it moved too fast, using a massive claw to rip through Ronnie's body as it fell with her to the floor.

  “No!” Jonah screamed as he lunged for it, but he was grabbed by behind. With two claws digging into his shoulders he couldn't get off a shot.

  He was flung against a wall, his head cracking against the wood so hard stars flew before his eyes. It took a moment for his vision to clear and when it did he came face to face with another snarling beast, this one wearing the photographer's body.

  He managed to get one shot off before his gun was swiped from his hand but it was a good shot. The bullet hit the beast dead center in the heart.

  He looked for Ronnie and found her holding her radio to her mouth, desperately trying to call for back-up, but she couldn't speak. The wound to her throat was too bad. The beast-cop dragged her across the floor, trying to leave with her. No way in hell was that going to happen.

  Jonah located his gun and quickly scooped it up, pivoting just in time to see the beast running toward him as below them chaos erupted. Ronnie may have not been able to speak but the police outside had heard enough over the radio to discern they were in trouble.

  Jonah knew he had to kill the damn things before they could kill anyone else. The other cops wouldn't know what to do with them and would only get in the way.

  He fired off a shot, hitting the beast in the chest, momentarily dazing it so he could get closer. While the beast was trying to recover from the silver shot burning its insides, Jonah got close enough to ram his gun into the beast's mouth and blow out the back of its head.

  He watched as the beasts' bodies went back to normal, transforming to look like humans as the police rushed the upstairs of the warehouse. A pair of cops yelled for an EMT as they dropped to their knees beside Ronnie's bloody body and the police chief stepped into the center of the room, standing over the body of the dead cop. “What the hell happened in here?” he asked as he looked between the two bodies then raised his icy gaze to Jonah.

  Clueless how to explain it all, Jonah shrugged. “I honestly don't fucking know.”

  Ronnie was in critical condition but alive. Her throat was seriously damaged but with time and medical care she would be able to speak again. Whether or not she'd ever overcome what she'd been through, Jonah didn't know.

  He cursed as his brother's phone went unanswered again and thumbed the END button on his cell. What the hell had happened? He knew about shifters, sure, but the one was a photographer he'd worked with before. There was no damn way that man had always been a shifter and even if he was recently turned it just didn't add up. Jonah's gut churned so hard he thought he might throw up. Something was seriously wrong with this whole scenario and for reasons he couldn't explain he still couldn't shake the idea that it had something to do with a woman. His mind went back to the woman outside the building. How could she have known what would happen? She had to be psychic. There was no way she could be directly involved with those beasts. She'd tried too hard to warn Ronnie. Or maybe she'd just wanted it to seem that way… Jonah shook his head, too tired to think straight. Where the hell was Jake? He needed him.

  “Porter!”

  He looked up, cringing slightly as the police c
hief entered the waiting room. He'd been raked over the coals enough for one night and still hadn't thought of any logical reason to give the chief about what had happened.

  “She wants you,” he said, nodding his head toward the hall.

  Jonah nodded and quickly passed the chief, feeling the weight of his assessing stare boring through his back. He'd already been found nearly beaten to death inside the home of Carter Dunn, the killer's body a charred pile of limbs, and now he'd been part of a shoot-out that made no sense, his partner seriously messed up. Too many crazy things that he couldn't logically explain were happening to him and he could just feel the mental evaluation coming. Hell, one more weird thing and he might be asked for his badge.

  “Hey,” he said as he closed the door to Ronnie's room behind him and stepped over to the side of the hospital bed.

  She looked awful. Her neck was braced and heavily bandaged, all the wounds along her body bandaged and tubes and wires were attached to her nose and chest. Despite her natural deep tan she was a sickly white.

  “I guess you're trying to wrap your mind around what happened tonight.”

  She stared at him, her eyes watering, and anger surged through him. He and Jake may have made jokes about her hard-ass mentality, even quipping that underneath her skirt hung a set of steel balls, but she was his partner. Nobody made her weak on his watch.

  “They're dead, Ronnie, and if there's more of them I promise you I will kill them all.”

  She reached for the pad of paper next to her bed and Jonah grabbed it for her, handing it to her along with a pen. She scribbled quickly and showed him the pad.

  WHAT WERE THEY?

  “Shifters,” he answered, figuring she'd be the last person to call him a loon now. “I know you've always thought my brother was a psychopath but the truth is he's the way he is because he has devoted his life to killing things like what we came face to face with tonight. Evil is everywhere. Vampires, shifters, witches, demons, you name it. It's not all stories.”

  She scribbled on the pad again.

  CARTER DUNN?

  “Demon-possessed. He used the blood he extracted from the victims to feed a vampire whom he extracted blood from in an attempt to create a serum which would give him immortality without actually becoming a vampire. And trust me, you don't want to know what really happened in there that night. I'm just lucky I survived, that my brother found me in time.”

  She closed her eyes, allowing a tear to fall before scribbling more on the paper.

  MILAIKA JORDAN. HOW DID SHE KNOW?

  Jonah sighed in frustration. “I'm guessing she's psychic. When the police on the scene were notified there was something going down inside she used the commotion to her advantage and got away but we have her driver's license. I'm heading to her apartment tonight. I wanted to make sure you were alright first.”

  BE CAREFUL, JOE. I DON'T HAVE FAMILY. YOU'RE ALL I GOT, KID.

  He smiled at the woman who was barely pushing forty-five, but insisted on treating him as if he were a baby compared to her. “I've been trained by the best hunter in the world, Ronnie. You just focus on getting better so we can get back to kicking ass together.”

  The look in her eyes said it all. Regardless of how well she healed, after this she might not ever set foot on a crime scene again.

  Malaika closed the toilet lid and rested her head on the cool surface as she flushed away the purged contents of her stomach. She knew better than to relax for long, knowing the minute she closed her eyes she'd see it all over again. Strange beasts feeding on dead bodies.

  She shuddered as she forced herself to stand and rinse her mouth out with water from the bathroom sink. As she brushed her teeth she saw the creatures' elongated fangs in her mind's eye. What was happening? She'd always had visions but nothing this grotesque. And the scariest thing of all was that she knew every vision she'd ever had was caused because somehow, she or someone she knew was involved. And these visions had started the night Craig had died.

  Craig couldn't be involved, he just couldn't. He couldn't be a part of something so horrific. He was a victim, just like the others. Maybe that was the tie. Through his death, she'd been connected to the killer. But how would that explain sensing him at the sites?

  She jumped as someone pounded on her front door. Quickly, she received a picture of the male detective in her mind. Great. She so wasn't in the mood to deal with the homicide detective's questions, regardless of the fact he'd seemed to listen to her at the crime scene earlier, not just with his ears but with his mind.

  He knocked again and she rushed down the hall to reach the door before he made more noise. Her baby girl hadn't slept well in weeks, dreams of her daddy plaguing her during the night, and she sure wasn't going to let this man wake her when she seemed to be resting peacefully.

  “Stop banging on my door before you wake my kid,” Malaika snapped, swinging the door open. “Do you know what time it is?”

  The detective arched a brow, flashed his badge, and stepped into her apartment, uninvited. “Do you always open your door this late at night without checking who it is first?”

  “I knew it was you.”

  “How's that?”

  “Peephole,” she said irritably, her mood growing darker as he looked at her suspiciously, giving her the sense he knew better. “How's your partner?” she asked, knowing the woman had been badly hurt but survived the attack she'd foreseen. The aura surrounding the male detective indicated he felt the need for vengeance but wasn't in mourning.

  “She's in the hospital, nearly had her throat torn out.”

  Malaika winced at his blunt answer, having seen that part in her mind's eye. How had she survived? In the vision she'd seen beforehand the woman had been ripped to shreds and consumed.

  “How did you know what was going to happen?”

  “Gut feeling,” she said quickly, folding her arms, wondering if the detective could hear her frantically thumping heart.

  “That was one hell of a gut feeling.” He surveyed her apartment, his gaze resting on a picture of Deja which was perched on top of the small table before the window. “That your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cute kid.” He smiled a little, easing some of Malaika's anxiety but it came back in full force when he whipped his head around and asked point-blank, “What do you know about these murders?”

  Malaika gasped, surprised by the sudden question and more than a little afraid. “I don't know what—”

  “Don't, Ms. Jordan. Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about or that you just had a feeling my partner was going to be hurt. You were terrified, scared out of your mind and you were dead-on. She should have never went in that building and you knew it because you either knew the men who attacked her—”

  “Men?”

  Malaika tightened her lips together when she realized she'd spoken out loud. The look the detective gave her caused her to shiver.

  “Men, Ms. Jordan, but they weren't normal men, were they?”

  She forced herself to look him straight in the eye despite the way his intense gaze sent her nerves into a frenzy. “Look, I wish I could help you but I honestly don't know—”

  “Are you a psychic?”

  The question, presented so abruptly, gave her pause. For as far back as she could remember she'd had the visions. Her mother had told her she was crazy when she spoke of them, said she’d been listening to her grandmother far too much. Due to what her mother considered a harmful influence she hadn't seen her grandmother since she was a child.

  She'd learned to keep her gifts secret. The few times she'd tried to clue anyone in to what she could do she was either laughed at, labeled a lunatic, or called a freak.

  “Are. You. A. Psychic?” The detective enunciated each word, his irritation and impatience clear.

  “Psychics aren't real,” Malaika muttered finally, deciding against telling the truth. It hurt too much to see the looks she received after revealing her gift and it had been
a hard day already.

  “Neither are monsters, Ms. Jordan, but I killed two of them earlier.”

  She looked at the detective, studied the hard set of his jaw. He was mad, for sure, but not at her although she wasn't doing anything to dissolve his anger. His eyes bore straight into her own, demanding answers, answers she got the feeling he already knew but he needed confirmation. How could he know? And why would he believe her when nobody else ever had? Except her grandmother, who she'd been told was mentally ill.

  “Mr. Porter, I wish I could help you but I don't know who is killing these people. I honestly don't.”

  “We saw you at another crime scene before today. Why were you there? How did you know something bad was going to happen to my partner?”

  “I told you—”

  “Dammit, lady, I can take you in right now on aiding and abetting charges!”

  “What? I haven't done anything!”

  “You're withholding information and that's enough. Now unless you want that cute little girl of yours to witness her mama being taken downtown in cuffs—”

  “Alright, fine! I have visions. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Is it the truth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, yes, Ms. Jordan, that's exactly what I want to hear along with every detail. When did the visions start? Who do you see? When and how often do they occur? What information—” He halted, cocking his head to the side and narrowing his hazel eyes. “Why do you look so stunned?”

  Malaika realized her mouth had been gaping and quickly closed it, blinking away her momentary shock. “That's it? You're not going to ask me if I'm running a con or call me crazy, ask if I'm on any medications or should be?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because it's what people tend to do after I make the mistake of revealing the fact I can sometimes see things before they happen.”

  “Well, Ms. Jordan, in my line of work I've come to realize that people as a whole are stupid, not to mention blind to anything they can't rationally explain. Hell, there was a time I would have thought psychic abilities were bull if you want to know the truth, but I've been through things that…” He laughed, little mirth coming through the restrained sound. “Trust me, honey, I've seen things that make visions seem like nothing special at all.”