“Hey!”
The guy coming toward him wore a black cowboy hat, nose-picker boots, a bronze buckle with, of course, a buckin’ bronco on it, and a scowl dark enough to blacken the western United States.
This power Charlie possessed, unfortunately, did not seem to work on men.
“Garth,” she protested as he bore down on them.
He grabbed Charlie by the collar of his black shirt and got in his grill and yelled, “Get your fuckin’ hands off Tammie, or I’ll break every bone in ’em.”
Charlie considered pointing out that it wasn’t his hands that had been on Tammie, but decided it probably wasn’t the time.
“You touch him, I’ll kick your ass,” Tammie declared.
“Shut your mouth, slut.”
“Call me that again, you’ll be short one ball.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you!” she screamed.
She was still under the influence of his power, but her target had shifted, and as Charlie eased back, she practically attacked Garth. He tried to throw her off to get to Charlie, but she was insistent and shrieking and clawing like a cat in heat. For a moment it looked like it was going to happen right there on the plank wood floor, but the bouncer was suddenly on the scene, and then another husky brute showed up. Charlie stepped away from the melee and was out the door and into a shivery November night that threatened rain or snow or maybe both.
He waited around awhile, leaning against a black SUV, wondering how long it would take and if he had the time. He wanted sex and he wanted it now, but even more, he wanted to kill someone. This was a dangerous new twist to his power that had begun a few months back, ever since those days and weeks with Mother Mary.
His lips curled and he was just straightening when Garth finally staggered out with Tammie clinging to him like a burr, and they got into a red truck with monster tires and rocked and rolled for long enough to get the deed done. He watched from a distance—warring with himself—then let his mind travel down delicious paths as he thought of killing them. Maybe he should leave before dangerous things happened. Maybe . . .
But he couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to.
Slipping on a pair of supple leather gloves, smooth as butter, he crept up to the cab of the big truck and flung open the door. The knife slid across Garth’s throat in one smooth stroke while Garth was trying to get his pants buckled up. Fucking bucking bronco buckle. Tammie opened her mouth to scream, and he did the same to her. She let out a strangled gurgle and gazed at him in horror, and he smiled as he watched them both until the last of Garth’s breath whistled out and Tammie’s eyes went blank. He stayed as long as he dared, and then he was out of the cab and walking quickly around to the back of the restaurant, pulling out his plastic bag. One hard stroke was all he needed, and he pumped like a stallion into the receptacle, holding back a groan of ecstasy that nearly killed him. Then he cleaned up and put the ziplock inside a second one and tucked them inside his jacket pocket and strolled away. He would get rid of this specimen of DNA somewhere safe. Couldn’t leave any evidence behind.
Ever since he’d killed the beautiful but aging woman who’d told him she was his mother, his power had grown. She was the woman who’d given him this power, he’d realized when she’d lured him to the island where she lived. He’d damn near lost his life trying to get there, but she’d been impossible to resist. A real temptation—a siren. She had answered many of his questions, had even told him who his father was, but had held back even more, and it had burned him up. Worse yet, he’d been flummoxed to learn that she was resistant to his charms. Impossible! Especially when she’d been able to damn near use him up, so strong was her own power.
“Your gift comes from me, and you owe me,” she’d told him with that knowing smile, which, he’d found, gripped him from the inside out. “I need your help to be free of them, one and all.”
“Who?” he’d asked, locked in her spell. She hadn’t had sex with him, and it was pure torture. He wanted her, his cock throbbing painfully, and he knew she was the one doing it to him, making him sweat with desire. Sending out her pheromones. His own mother. Doing it on purpose.
He would have done anything for her. Anything!
She whispered their names in his ear. She wanted to be there when it was done. She wanted him with her. Always. He agreed readily. He was her slave. Just please, please, please fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.
But she wouldn’t. Ironically, she held all the power. She didn’t feel for him what he was feeling for her. She wouldn’t let him have her. Nor would she release him. She just kept him on the island until finally she was ready and he was half mad with sexual desire.
“Tomorrow,” she told him, her blue eyes glowing with anticipation. “We’ll go together.”
But tomorrow came and the winds were up and the rowboat he’d used to get to the island wouldn’t hold up. For a long, angry moment she looked upward, her blond hair flying, whipping around her head in wild strands. Her hands were fists, which she shook skyward as she railed against the dark heavens and the gods who held her prisoner.
And that was when she let go. Just a little. He felt it, that special tingle, and he was on her in an instant, wrestling her to the ground and the weeds of her garden. A flash, and he saw the knife that had been hidden in the folds of her dress. She raised it high, intent on taking his life, but he was stronger. Forcefully, he yanked the weapon from her fingers, then slipped the blade between her ribs in one fluid motion, watching her die, watching her eyes, feeling her power shrink down to a tiny dot and die out, feeling it enter him and make him even stronger.
He carried her back inside the cottage and laid her on her bed. Then he went into the bathroom and masturbated, filled with a wondrous sexual power far greater than he’d possessed before. Once he was finished, he returned to the bedroom, and with a rag he wiped the hilt of the knife clean. Then he pressed her right hand around it and held it until rigor mortis set in hours later. Before he left, he took a thin strip of cloth ripped from the bed and wrapped her hand to the hilt. Surveying his handiwork objectively, he decided that maybe she’d given him his mission in life. Find these women, screw the hell out of ’em, and then kill them, one by one. And maybe take some others, too.
After all, she was his mother. It was the least he could do.
Thinking about it now brought on another erection, and he struggled t
o tamp down his libido, bring the galloping horses under control, turn his thoughts around, but it was no good. He was in his black Range Rover and driving away, thinking of who he could have sex with. He was too jazzed to call it a night just yet, but he knew another kill was too risky.
But that didn’t mean he couldn’t find some woman ready to spread her legs and moan and thrash like an animal. He didn’t have to be quite so careful if he didn’t kill ’em. They always came back for more.