The Fifth Victim (23 page)

He noticed that the candles were still glowing and the fire still burned brightly. It had been only a couple of hours since they’d fallen asleep after the first loving, but he already wanted her again.

He kissed her forehead. She stirred, but didn’t awaken. He ran his hand over her back and down her hip, then cupped one rounded buttock. She moved against him…silkily, sensually…like a spoiled, little cat wanting attention; and when he heard her purr, he knew she was awake.

“How sore are you?” he asked quietly.

She lifted her head from his chest, slid up his body and kissed his neck. “Not very sore.”

He caressed her belly in a circular motion, then plunged his hand between her thighs. She tightened around him, trapping his inquisitive fingers.

“I want you again,” he told her.

She kicked the covers to the foot of the bed, then crawled on top of him, aligning her body perfectly for a quick, smooth joining. Gripping her waist, he lifted her just enough to settle her over his erection. Only after he was deep inside her did he remember he’d taken her raw, without any protection. But when he started to withdraw, she clung to him.

“No, not this time,” she murmured. “This time I want all of you. Everything.”

“But Genny…”

“You want this, too. I know you do.”

She was right. He did want it like this. No barriers between them. Only with Genny would he throw caution to the wind; because only with Genny did the consequences seem unimportant.

She rode him as if she’d sat astride him a hundred times. They moved together in perfect unison. They kissed. They caressed. She sighed and cried. He groaned and whispered earthy, erotic words that seemed to ignite a fire inside her.

As passion built inside them, their movements became wilder. They tumbled about on the bed, reversing dominate positions several times before they rolled off the bed and onto the floor in front of the fireplace. Dallas lifted her from the large oval rug and placed her on top of him again. She sat there, her head tossed back, her breasts begging for his lips, and suddenly he knew what she’d meant when she’d said she wanted all of him. Everything.

He could feel what Genny was feeling, could hear what she was thinking, could sense his own body through her. Whatever the hell was happening to him, it was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t explain it, but somewhere in his dazed mind he knew that Genny had made a connection to him. But not just telepathically. This was more.

Without saying a word, she begged him to love her, to never stop loving her, to be a part of her forever. And in that moment, when fulfillment claimed them both simultaneously, Dallas knew that Genny was all he needed. All he’d ever need.

Chapter 22

“We’d better get out of bed and put on some clothes.” Dallas ran his hand down Genny’s back and caressed her hip. “Jacob will be here in less than an hour.”

“I’ll need to bring Drudwyn inside and feed him again,” Genny said.

“When I let him out earlier, he headed straight for the woods.”

“Well, he has a girlfriend, and I’m sure he was eager to see her.”

“I know the feeling.”

Genny lifted her arms above her head and stretched like a feline basking in the sun. “I’ve never felt so wonderful in my entire life.” She flung her arms around Dallas and spread kisses from his ear to his shoulder. “Dallas Sloan, I think you’re very good for me.”

He reached out and lifted her just enough so that the front of her body rested along his right side, her head on his chest; then he kissed the top of her head. “That works both ways. You’re definitely good for me. As a matter of fact, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Genny snuggled closer, loving the feel of their naked bodies pressing intimately against each other. “I feel the same.” As she rubbed one leg up and down his, she curled her fingers around several strands of his chest hair.

“Genny, about what happened…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t mean the great sex. I mean the other…I don’t know quite how to describe it.”

“You mean the connection.” She lifted her head and gazed down into his blue eyes. “We can feel what the other is feeling, sense what the other is thinking.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s it.” Dallas continued fondling her, as if he had no choice but to touch her. “After the first time, each time we made love, it happened. I was experiencing what you were experiencing and—”

“And I was feeling…sensing…everything that you did.”

“How?” he asked. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. It’s never happened to me before.” She laughed softly. “But Granny told me that it would. It happened with her and Papa Butler. She called it
the connection
.”

“This connection—you feel it even when we aren’t making love, don’t you?” He grasped her chin. “Tell me the truth. Can you always read my mind?”

She smiled and shook her head. “I can’t read your mind. Not even when we’re making love. Not really. It’s more of a bonding, a physical, mental and emotional joining…becoming one.”

“Yeah, that’s how it felt.” He eased his big hand down over her neck and across each breast. Genny sucked in a deep breath when her nipples peaked. “But you can’t read my mind right now?” he asked.

“No, but I can send you a telepathic message,” she told him. “And if you’ll listen, you can hear me.”

“The night I swore I’d never come back up here to see you again, when I returned to my cabin, I got this overwhelming feeling that you needed me.” Dallas shot straight up in bed, inadvertently shoving her aside. Turning sharply, he glared at her. “I thought I saw your image in the mirror over the sink…. My God, you sent me a telepathic message that night, didn’t you?”

“You didn’t actually hear me,” she said as she rose from the bed. “You only sensed what I was saying to you.” She picked up her gown off the floor and put it on, hurriedly working the tiny pearl buttons through the buttonholes. “Now that we’ve bonded in a physical way, you should be able to hear me talking to you…inside your mind. If you’re willing to listen.”

“That will certainly make telephones unnecessary.” Dallas got up, grabbed his jeans off the floor, and slipped them up over his legs and hips.

“But not until you’re able to communicate with me in the same way—”

He snapped his head around; their gazes locked. “Oh, okay. Yeah, I see what you mean. You can send me a message, but I don’t have the ability to respond to you telepathically.”

“You do have the ability within you,” she told him. “You just haven’t found a way to use it.”

How could she tell Dallas that only by believing wholeheartedly in his own sixth sense, as well as hers, could they become truly connected, in every way, as Granny and Papa Butler had been? He would have to discover that fact for himself. Once his love for her was strong enough, his faith in their union powerful enough, the boundaries between them would disappear completely. And when that happened, they could go away any time they wanted to, just the two of them, to their secret place. A place within themselves that no one else could ever share.

Dallas continued staring at her for several minutes, then he nodded his head. “I guess I’ll have to get used to having a girlfriend who possesses all these psychic abilities.”

Genny went to him, lifted her arms up around his neck, stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Responding immediately, he deepened the kiss, then swung her up into his arms and carried her to the bathroom. He turned on the shower, then stripped her out of her gown and took off his jeans.

“If we shower together, we’ll save time,” he told her, then lifted her by her waist and set her into the stall.

“Maybe we should wash each other and save more time.”

“I like the idea,” he said. “But I’m warning you—if you touch me, I’ll have to make love to you.”

Her hand hovered over his chest. Without touching him, she eased her hand lower…and lower. Then she reached out and circled his erect penis.

“I warned you, didn’t I?”

Dallas grabbed her. She laughed when he picked her up, then slid her down onto his sex. She wrapped her legs around his hips and surrendered to the pleasure ripening inside her.

Dallas and Jacob stood just inside the doorway of Melva Mae Butler’s bedroom and watched while Genny drew the curtains and lit all the white candles situated throughout the room.

“She prefers Granny’s room when she does readings or uses her sight for a particular purpose,” Jacob said. “She might not admit it, but I think she believes Granny’s soul protects her in some way if she’s in this room.”

“You know, a couple of weeks ago I’d have thought you were crazy to believe in her the way you do,” Dallas admitted. “At first, I thought Genny was just a very beautiful nutcase.”

“Now you know different.” Jacob looked right at Dallas. “Don’t hurt her. Don’t break her heart. If you do…I’ll have to break your damn neck.”

Dallas nodded. “I swear to you that I would do anything for her.” Dallas added silently, I’d kill to protect her. I’d even die for her.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

Genny moved three chairs around the small table at the side of the room, then motioned to Dallas and Jacob. “Come here, please, and sit down. Both of you.”

They did as she requested. After they took their seats, she, too, sat. “This may work. It might not. But if it does, I’ll go very deep into another realm. And if I venture in too far, I may need help coming back.” She looked at Jacob. “We’ve done this before, so you know what to expect.”

“Just be very careful,” Jacob told her. “I remember another time when I almost didn’t get you back.”

“You won’t be doing it alone. You’ll have help this time.” Genny smiled at Dallas, then reached over and clasped his hand. “To pull me back, you can use verbal words, but you must use mental words, too. Use your mind to draw me back to you. Do you understand?”

Dallas swallowed. “I think so.” He squeezed her hand. “If you believe you have to do this…be careful. Be damn careful.”

Genny released his hand, sat straight up in her chair, and shut her eyes. Dallas watched her closely. She appeared to relax completely. Minutes seemed like hours. He could hear his own heartbeat, could sense each second ticking away inside his mind. The silence in the room was almost unbearable. Then he began to hear the subtle little sounds he ordinarily wouldn’t notice. The gentle wind outside the windows murmured softly. The bedside clock’s ticking grew louder and louder. Ice cubes chinking as they dropped from the ice machine in the refrigerator echoed down the hall. The repetitive pounding of his own heartbeat drummed in his ears.

Suddenly Genny’s breathing became heavy and rapid. Her mouth gaped as she sucked in air. Her eyelids flickered. She moaned softly.

“What’s happening?” Dallas whispered.

“She’s made a connection,” Jacob replied in a low voice.

“Is she in pain?”

“No.”

Genny made odd noises. Gasps. Whimpers. Groans. All the while she sat with her eyes closed, her body barely moving.

And then as Dallas and Jacob watched her, she tossed back her head and a look of sheer agony appeared on her face.

“No, please, no!” Genny cried.

“What is it, Genny? What’s happened?” Dallas reached for her, but Jacob grabbed Dallas’s arm and shook his head.

“Can you talk to us?” Jacob asked.

“Blood. Blood on her face. Blood on her arms…the knife. No, don’t!”

Darkness all around. Swirling mists of malevolence surrounded the bare feet standing inside the pentagram painted on the floor—painted in blood. The woman’s own blood. It dripped from the small incisions in her arms. She held the crimson-stained knife over her head as she swayed slowly and hummed. Her white blond hair fell in wild array around her naked shoulders.

“Prince Beelzebub, I beseech thee,” the woman shouted. “I desire to make a pact with thee, and request that thou protect me and bless me.”

Genny could see the woman’s face plainly. A face etched with pleasurable pain. She stood, totally naked, in the center of a dark room. Alone.

“I command thee, Great Lucifer, to send an emissary to receive my offerings, and if these gifts please thee, then do my bidding on this day. I desire thy instruction in the ways of the ancients.”

This isn’t right
, Genny’s mind cried out.
Do not ask favors from the dark powers. Evil will take your soul
.

Startled when she heard Genny’s voice inside her head, the woman dropped the knife to the concrete floor. She stopped abruptly and looked all around her.

“Who is speaking to me?” She stepped out of the unholy circle and began searching the room.

I’m not in the room with you. I’m in your mind. I see what you’re trying to do. I know what you hope to accomplish. You must stop now. No good can come of this. Not for you or for others
.

The woman shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the voice inside her. When she found nothing in her search, she reached for a switch on the wall, flipped the lever and flooded the room with overhead lighting.

Genny realized the woman was in a large room in a basement. She saw cinder-block walls and a concrete floor, both in their natural state. Weathered gray. Cold. Damp.

“Are you a witch?” the woman asked.

I am no witch
, Genny told her.

“Who are you? What do you want? How did you contact me? Please, answer me. I want to learn. I must—”

Genny began backing away, knowing that she had connected with evil, but not the monstrous mind of the killer she sought.

“Answer me, damn you!”

Genny tried to free herself from the mental connection she’d made with Esther Stowe, but the minister’s wife held tight, refusing to release her.

“I must know who you are!”

I am one who wishes you no harm
.

“Are you a messenger from my Lord Satan?”

No, Esther, I am not. My powers come from a kind and loving God
.

Suddenly as if what she’d heard startled her, Esther’s grip on Genny snapped like a rotten twig in the wind. Genny’s mind swirled through endless clouds of darkness. Black. Poisonous. A dangerous vortex of unholiness threatened. Genny fought valiantly to escape.

Gray mists curled all around her, then disappeared, leaving only a clean, pure white light. She heaved a deep sigh, knowing she was free and once again in total control.

She opened her eyes and looked first at Dallas and then at Jacob. Both men were leaning toward her, concerned expressions on their faces.

“I didn’t reach the killer,” Genny said in a weak voice. “I made contact with a woman who proclaims herself a witch, someone who practices black magic.”

“How did that happen?” Jacob asked. “If you were concentrating on Cherokee County, then that must mean—”

“She lives in Cherokee Pointe,” Genny told them. “It’s Esther Stowe, the minister’s wife.”

Esther ran upstairs to her bathroom, showered hurriedly, washing the blood from her body; then she covered her cuts with antiseptic cream. She couldn’t believe what had happened. Didn’t really understand what it meant. But she knew, without a doubt, that she had telepathically linked with another mind. But it had not been a believer in the occult, not someone such as herself.

The voice had said she wasn’t a witch, but Esther believed otherwise. Whoever possessed such incredible power had to be no less than a high priestess, albeit a high priestess in the art of white magic. If only she could connect with this person again.

Esther opened her closet door, jerked a set of gray sweats from a hanger and slipped into them. She put on socks and shoes, then headed for the front door. After grabbing her black-and-white wool tweed coat from the hall tree, she rushed out of the house, leaving the front door unlocked. She raced along the sidewalk, bursting into a run several times, then slowing her pace back to a fast walk. She made it from the parsonage to the church, half a block away, in record time.

She hoped Haden was alone. He spent much too much time working with, consoling, and comforting the members of his church. At heart, Haden was a do-gooder, despite his odd behavior quirks. When she’d first met him at seventeen, he’d been the minister at the church her aunt Theda attended back in Abilene, Texas. They’d started screwing around within a month of meeting, and as soon as she turned eighteen, they’d gotten married. Hell, she would have married just about anybody to have gotten away from Aunt Theda and Abilene. At first the sex had been good and Haden had doted on her, giving her whatever her heart desired. But it hadn’t been long until he revealed his little sexual oddities. He was a voyeur. He liked to watch. And nothing turned him on more than watching her fuck another man.

Marty Gannon had become her lover and her teacher. He had introduced her to satanism, and she quickly discovered her true calling. For the past five years she had worked diligently at her trade, at first seeking out other covens when she and Haden moved from one parish to another, then eventually forming her own covens and anointing herself as the high priestess.