Soul Thief (Blue Light Series) (12 page)

He stood on the beach alone, breathing raggedly after his run, hands on his knees, feeling a terrible weight in his heart. The calm blue surface of the Gulf of Mexico spread out before him, a wilderness he wished he could get lost in. Tiny swells lapped earnestly at the shore. On the western horizon huge thunderheads bruised the sky. Doug bent down and picked up a smooth flat stone, angrily throwing it, skipping it along the surface of the calm sea.

Today had been a day of immeasurable turmoil. He never should have brought Annie back here. He should have stayed in
Maine and taken a stand.

He knew now without doubt that De Roché had made some sort of twisted deal for Annie’s first born. What he hadn’t known, and what he was confused about, was his own connection to it all. The monster he’d seen in De Roché’s mind, the monster he’d seen in Annie’s childhood bedroom, was the same monster that had been haunting him since childhood, the same monster that had taken his childhood friends and killed his parents. Everything was connected in some twisted and terrible way.

Right now the important question was why De Roché wanted the child?
What’s so important about Annie’s first born that men and monsters would do anything to possess it?
The dark and sinister fluttering blossomed suddenly inside Doug’s brain, causing a moment of vertigo and paranoia.

He needed to think about De Roché, as distasteful as it was. He needed to understand the man, his motives
and his obsessions. He thought he’d known how far De Roché would go. He’d been wrong. Today he’d glimpsed something he had not been aware of until now: He’d known De Roché was cold and calculating. Now he believed the man was evil, perhaps inherently so. But something was wrong here, something that went beyond Rachael’s murder. De Roché’s empire was in trouble. Doug’s intuition told him that De Roché was a man frayed around the edges, alone and desperate, a man calling in all his debts.

What if there
was
some connection between himself, Annie and De Roché? Something he’d never seen before, or had refused to see in his blind love for Annie. Suppose the old man could put his finger on the wheel any time he so desired, suppose he could actually manipulate people and events through some supernatural means. He certainly had power over his own daughter, the extent of which had been totally lost on Doug until now. He knew Annie had stayed away from De Roché for her own reasons, reasons probably much different than his own. Or had they been? Just how much did Annie actually know? How much had she chosen not to tell him? Doug had never pressed her and he knew why. She was so fragile he was afraid she would break, or probably more to the point, he was afraid she might reveal something he did not want to know.

An earlier self would have rejected all these suppositions as nonsense. Back then he was much more innocent of the world and its strange and complex ways. But Doug had changed. Annie had changed him. In a thousand ways he was more complex than he’d been before he’d met her, and part of him yearned for a return to the innocence and clarity of those earlier times. Love had changed him, but love, he thought, was a mild term. What he felt for Annie was something more akin to obsession, and he knew that De Roché was obsessed as well. That’s why he had been so afraid to bring
Annie back to this place. Annie was the kind of creature that brought out obsessions in men.

Doug sensed movement behind him and
whirled, his heartbeat accelerating. It was Annie, walking briskly toward him, her head high, a determined look on her face, the soft, smooth swell of her hips gently undulating with each step. She had something to tell him, something devastating and terrible. He could see it in her eyes, but even more, he could sense it floating around her like an aura. She was about to destroy all they had worked for with a few careless words. Suddenly he did not want to know what she had to say, he was scared shitless of knowing. He thought he might go crazy if he knew.

She melded gently into his arms and held him tightly, trembling.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Annie, I know—
”

“No, you don’t—”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“Something snapped. I hit you. I don’t know why—”

“It doesn’t matter, babe,” he said. “It was me. I was an asshole. I should never have said the things I said.”

“No . . .
no!”
she said. “You
saw
. . .  You were telling the
truth.
That’s one of the reasons I love you so much. You always tell the truth.”

Annie was so wrong about him it was almost a joke. He’d never told her the truth about his terrible visions of the
creature that haunted his existence. He’d never told her the truth about how his parents had died. And perhaps the worst deception of all: he’d failed to inform her of her fathers’ desire to possess her first child. It was as if he was somehow guilty of collusion. No, he had never been honest about anything with the person he loved most in the world. If she knew the secrets he kept she would almost certainly hate him.

“I just get so crazy when it comes to you,” he said. “Sometimes I can’t help myself.”

“I know,” she said. “I know you love me. And I love you. That’s why I have to tell you something.”

“I know it wasn’t your fault
, Annie. You were a child. They did things to you. They used you.” He was so afraid, he realized, more afraid than he’d ever been.

Annie stared at him in bewilderment, tearstains streaking her cheeks. “But . . . how can you know such things?”

“I just do, Annie, that’s all. Sometimes I see things. Bad things. I don’t know why. It just happens. I saw something in your father’s eyes. I saw you and him and the other . . .”

“Oh, God, Doug, please, I need to
explain—”

“
No you don’t, Annie. I already know and it doesn’t matter.”

“I’m not a bad person.”

“I know you’re not. You’re my angel.”

She nodded earnestly, staring at him in fixed confusion, and Doug
saw the swell of relief mixed into all the other emotions. He held her close, gracing her throat with a lace of gentle kisses.

“Annie,” he said. “I love you so much.”

Her hand moved up his spine to cup the back of his head, her mouth seeking his.

They went down onto the sand and she rolled over to straddle his hips. She reached to fumble with the buckle of his belt. He was suddenly half hard beneath her and trapped. She reached up under his shirt and ran her palms across his chest. His body was solid without being heavy. Silk hair spread out from his sternum and ran down the central groove of his abdomen.

She sat up a little and slipped his jeans down his legs, then his shorts. His cock sprang out and stood straight up. She gently stroked the underside. It responded in surges.

“God,” she said. “I love that thing.”

She leaned forward and her mouth met his.

Gently he coaxed her over and they fell side by side on the sand. His fingers worked at the button on the top of her jeans. She made no attempt to assist, liking the look of concentration that he wore.

Now his hands were inside her jeans. There was urgency in him and much as she loved to watch his intent she aided the undressing now, raising her hips from the sand and sliding the jeans down along with her panties. The dark triangle of her sex beckoned. Her thighs and calves were well formed, hard but not muscular; above them her abdomen was flat, elastic, no sign yet of the child.

Doug got to his feet and held out a hand, pulling her up when she took it. Without pausing she slipped
the t-shirt over her head, revealing breasts that were full, well proportioned, and nearly perfect.

He led her to water’s edge, and locked together as one, they allowed the
Gulf of Mexico to gently take them.

Doug pulled her toward him, and as she turned away from him, he put his arms around her midriff hugging her to him, his erection pressing against the softness of her buttocks.

“Mmm,” she said. “I forgot what it was like here.”

He slipped into her from behind. Gently she bucked against him, meeting his thrusts, and they made love in the warm saline bath, locked together as one.

Later, he carried her out of the water, her arms and legs locked around him, her face buried against the side of his neck kissing him there. Her lips were hot, and he felt himself stiffening once again. He laid her gently on the sand, stood above her for a long moment and marveled at her incredible beauty. His cock stood out before him at nine o’ clock.

“Doug,” she breathed as he moved gently down onto her. “Oh, God, there’s so much you don’t know. So much I’m just beginning to understand myself.”

“Shhh,” he said, pressing himself down to meet her thrusts. “There’ll be time enough later.” He entered her and they made love for a second time.

He tried to stave off his eruption for a few more trembling seconds, the heat of her channel, the swell of her breasts, the beauty of her soul, the confounding mystery of her, all of it and more, filling his senses.

She danced beneath him. “I love you,” she said. “I love you, love you, love . . . you . . .”

They lay together for a long time, naked and silent on the deserted beach. Doug  clos
ed his eyes. Sometimes he could see Annie more clearly when he could not see her at all. When he thought of Annie—which was almost all the time—he saw her as a flawless creature, a sculpture, painstakingly wrought from some magic block of malleable marble by the hand of an immortal master. She was in his mind’s eye now, her skin pale and cool, her body supple, and long, like a stretching cat; and her laughter, the ringing of delicate wind chimes; her eyes, the color of each season, changing to reflect her myriad moods. And her mystery, yes, there was so much mystery in her, deeper and more profound than he could ever hope to comprehend.

By contrast, he was just an ordinary man, raised by an aunt in a small and unpretentious house on a village street and sent to public schools. He could never be the god to Annie’s goddess, and lying there beside her naked on the beach he felt strangely like an imposter.

After a while he turned and faced his goddess. “How did you manage to get away from your father?”

“I told him I was going out to find the man I loved
. I told him that you were the most important person in the world to me.”

Doug stared at Annie. “You’d think he’d know that by now.”

“It’s important that he hear it from me.”

A startling yet tantalizing thought struck Doug. “Do you suppose he knows what we just did?”

Annie shrugged giving Doug a careless grin. “He’s got guards posted around the estate, and cameras. I imagine one of his boys has reported to him by now.”

An image of Theo the Greek God came to Doug’s mind, standing behind the row of beach pines with a set of binoculars, perhaps a video camera. “You think someone was
watching
us?”

Annie flipped her wet hair carelessly back. “Doug, nothing happens here that h
e’s not aware of. I don’t care. Why? Do you?”

Doug wasn’t sure how to answer that question. It was too complicated. For obvious reasons part of him did, for reasons much more ambiguous there was a part of him that didn’t.

“Maybe it would convince him of our love for each other,” she said.

Doug sighed. “I don’t think love matters to him. I’m not sure he’s capable of it.”

“He’s stubborn and possessive. He’s used to getting his way.”

“Spoiled is more like it.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t know what’s going on in his life now,” Annie replied. “I’ve been away too long.”

“He acts like he owns you.”

“He used to think that . . . I suppose in a way he does . . . but only part of me.”

“Which part?”

“I’m his daughter. That will never change.”

“No, I don’t suppose it will, but you’ve done okay without him, right?” Doug was grasping at straws, his jealousy
raging just beneath the surface, threatening to boil over. He hated himself for his emotions.

“Tell me your parents don’t still own a part of you.”

It was an evasive answer, Doug knew. He turned away from Annie, staring out at the calm sea. The bruised sky had blocked out the setting sun and a huge shadow moved across the water toward them. He blinked his eyes and for a short moment he was in that long ago place, sitting in the back seat of the car, his mother and father in the front, so excited because they were going to the bank to sign papers for their first home. Then, the moment was shattered forever in a powerful explosion of glass and twisted metal and he realized he hadn’t been there at all. Some sort of terrible magic had caused him to see them die from across space and time.

Doug was hauled back to the present
and he realized he was still staring at the black and ominous mass in the distance. The cloud seemed to be made up of a million black and fluttering wings, all beating together in some senseless and hellish rhythm. He closed his eyes, opened them again and the illusion was gone. He couldn’t deny the truth in Annie’s words. Even in death he felt his parents in ways he couldn’t articulate but wouldn’t change for the world. He never wanted to let go of that.

“He’s alone now,” Annie said. “I’m all he has.”

Doug turned back around. “He has his boys.”

Annie gave her head a rueful shake. “Something’s changed. I’ve never seen him this way. He’s frightened.”

“He should be. He’s made serious enemies. His wife was murdered before his eyes.”

“
So you’re saying he deserves what he got?”

Doug frowned
and shook his head. “No. I don’t think anyone deserves that.”

“I think he’s afraid of death,” Annie said. “He used to think he was immortal. Now I don’t know. ”

“Maybe he is, Annie.”

Annie threw her wet hair back and laughed as though Doug had told a joke. She didn’t see it. She honestly never noticed her father’s lack of aging.

“He wants me out of the way,” Doug said.

“I know how to handle him. We made a bargain.”

Doug searched her face. “What bargain?”

“A little time, that’s all.”

“You’re staying, aren’t you?”

She looked away. “Just until the baby’s born
. He needs me, Doug.”

Doug felt like he’d been stabbed in the heart. “Annie, he’s winning. Can’t you see?”

“What is he winning?”

“I don’t know. You! The baby! The game! Don’t let him do this.”

“There is no game.”

“
Oh, yes, there’s most definitely a game and you’re playing it with him. Jesus, he has everything he could possibly want here. He’s got his money, his boys . . . his goddamn power!”

“Don’t be this way, Doug.”

“You’re making me crazy, Annie.”

“I’ll always be your girl.”

Doug was looking into Annie’s eyes, and in a flash of realization he saw that she knew about her father’s desire for her first born. Doug was as certain of this as he’d ever been about anything in his life. Annie had always known. Perhaps she wasn’t
consciously
aware of it, but hidden deep inside her DNA was the trigger that had brought her here to this moment in time, daddy’s compliant little girl, come home to give him what he wants, what he
demands.
And Doug also knew in that moment that no matter how much he wanted it to not be so, there was nothing he could do about it. He stood up and slipped into his jeans. His face felt flushed and feverish, as though Annie had struck him again, as if he might go crazy any second and strike her. “So that’s what this was all about?”

“What?”

“This little seduction of yours.”

“It wasn’t about anything except my love for you.”

“Oh, balls, Annie.”

“You
have to trust me, Doug.”

“I don’t trust him
. Jesus, you shouldn’t either. He’s manipulating you and you’re letting him. I don’t even know who you are. Not sure I’ve ever known.”

“Grow up, Doug.”

Doug searched her face again. “For God sakes, Annie,
you
don’t trust him.”

“Maybe it’s time I started.”

Doug picked her clothes up off the sand and threw them at her. “Cover your tits,” he said. “I don’t want anyone but me looking at you.”

“Doug, don’t.”

“What’s happening to us, Annie?”

She didn’t answer him. Truthfully she didn’t know. She felt th
at thing Doug had spoken of in his moment of inspiration, all around her now, consuming her, and it
was
real, and furthermore she did not have the power to resist its ugly persuasions. She felt like something inside her was in the process of dying even as her unborn child began to live. She got dressed and stood on the sand, waiting.

Doug had walked back down to the water and was skipping stones over the calm surface. He was her rock, her Adonis. Muscles rippled in his arms and shoulders and buttocks. His beauty and his heart made her ache. “I’m so sorry, Doug.”

“No you’re not.”

Annie sighed.
“Daddy’s planning a dinner party tonight,” she said. “He wanted me to make sure you knew.”

“Dinner party?” Doug said amazed. “My God, his wife was just murdered.”

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Annie said. “But he expects us both to attend.”

“Can’t he wait until she’s in the ground?”

“That will be tomorrow. He has his reasons.”

Doug did not reply. He stood
with his back to her, angrily skipping stones.

A
nnie felt like she
was drowning. “Are you coming?”

“No,” he said without turning to face her. “I have to think.”

Annie walked back to the house alone.