Parked in a visitor’s spot at her apartment building, Darius reached across to the passenger seat and pulled Brisa into his arms. He kissed her thoroughly, already wishing he could take her back to his place.
Releasing her, he said, “I’ll see you tonight. And if you want to bring enough clothes with you for the weekend, go right ahead.”
“I’ll do that,” she said before she gave him a quick peck on the lips and got out of the car.
Darius watched Brisa cross the parking lot to the front entrance of the building. He’d make love to her tonight. Whatever had come over him earlier hadn’t happened again, making him think it was just some weird instance. Not worried about it anymore, he figured there would be nothing to get in his way of having Brisa.
Chapter Four
Once darkness took over the city, Darius was out on the hunt. He picked a section where he knew he’d run across at least one evildoer in the act that would cause him to shift quickly. Even though he had no worries about what had happened back at his place repeating again, a small part of him wanted to make sure nothing else had been screwed up by it.
Darius walked down a couple of streets, then along another. He was in the middle of an industrial park with large buildings looming on either side of him. Some of them were closed while others were open, running a shift through the entire night. That didn’t stop unsavory types from lurking around.
Rounding a bend in the road, he felt the pulling sensation he’d anticipated. Darius followed it to the back of one of the smaller buildings in the sector to what looked to be a storage facility for a retail business. The stench of evil filled the air.
Two men stood in front of a docking bay, having a heated argument. Darius closed in on his prey with silent feet. Not that they would have noticed him, since they were too busy verbally abusing each other. But that didn’t last long when one of them pulled a knife and stuck it into the other’s belly.
The pain of shifting tore through Darius, making his breath catch as the wounded man dropped to the ground. His attacker stood over him, looking as if he were ready to strike again. With a loud growl, Darius drew the attention of the knife wielder.
The man spun around, his eyes widening as his gaze landed on Darius in his half-human and half-jackal form. He brought the knife up and brandished it in front of him. “I don’t know what the fuck you are, but you have no business here.”
Darius snorted inside. The guy was scared shitless, the scent of his fear was heavy in the breeze around them. So this particular prey wouldn’t go down easy, in fact, would put on the tough act, maybe even try to fight Darius. Not that the man would win. In this form, Darius was almost twice his size, and twice as strong. He was all predator.
Stalking closer, Darius curled his upper lip and growled once more. The man’s bravado seemed to slip a bit, but he quickly recovered. The hand holding the knife shot out as soon as Darius came within range. He blocked it easily and knocked the weapon from his prey’s grasp. Still the man didn’t give up, resorting to his fists.
Darius let him swing a few punches, though he avoided each one before he decided it was time to end it. Catching the man’s fist in his hand, Darius squeezed hard enough to break bones. His prey yelled in agony.
Darius released him and grabbed him by his throat. He brought his muzzle close to the man’s face, snaring his gaze as Darius tore into his mind. All his evil deeds filled Darius’ head, forcing him to live through them all. Stabbing someone in the gut was petty compared to what his prey had gotten away with.
With a single thought, Darius willed his gold dagger in his hand. He struck fast and sure, slicing across the man’s stomach in the same spot where his prey had stabbed the other male. The evildoer faded out of existence, sent on his way to meet Anubis.
Darius turned to look at the wounded man who had fallen to his knees, his hands pressed to his abdomen. Darius closed the short distance between them and tilted the other man’s head up.
“Don’t,” the man whimpered. “Please don’t make me disappear like you did Jimmy.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” Darius asked. “Your friend was here to steal from this place. I saw it in his memories before I sent him to meet his judgment. You were here with him.”
“I wasn’t here to help Jimmy. I only tried to stop him. I’ll admit at first I was going to help him, only because I owed him a lot of money, but I couldn’t do it. I have a problem when it comes to gambling. I’m no thief.”
“I’ll be able to see if you tell the truth.” Darius met the man’s gaze and pushed into his mind. He met with no resistance. After a few seconds, he released the wounded man’s chin. “You didn’t lie.” He willed his dagger away.
This man, Sam, had been coerced into helping Jimmy break into the building, and at the last minute had backed out. Sam just had a weakness with gambling, would accept any bet someone made him. There was no evil in him.
Snagging Sam’s gaze once more, Darius erased himself and what had happened to Jimmy from the man’s memory. In its place he planted a new one, of how Jimmy and Sam had argued. Jimmy had then pulled a knife and stabbed Sam before he took off, taking the weapon with him. While in this entranced state, Darius told Sam to wait until he’d left before dialing 9-1-1 to get himself help.
Darius growled, pain tearing through his body as he shifted back to his human form. Once it was complete he looked at Sam one final time to make sure he was still in a trance before Darius turned and took off at a run. He didn’t go far, but kept hidden to make sure an ambulance showed up for Sam. If the other man hadn’t managed to call for help, Darius would get him some.
It didn’t take long before the sound of sirens heading toward the industrial park could be heard. Darius stepped deeper into the shadows of his hiding spot as a police cruiser sped up to the building where he’d left Sam. Shortly after, an ambulance arrived with lights flashing and sirens wailing.
Darius remained where he was until all the vehicles left, taking Sam with them. Once everything was quiet again, he stepped from his hiding place and continued to make his circuit of the industrial park.
He’d just turned to work his way back to his car so he could meet up with Brisa at the bar when the same pain he’d experienced at his house earlier slammed into him, only this time worse. It drove Darius to his knees, his vision fading in and out. He lifted his hands to cradle his head, the center of all his agony, and watched claws burst through his fingertips before receding again.
“I see you,” said a disembodied male voice that seemed to come from all directions. “I see you, warrior of Anubis.” An evil-sounding laugh followed.
“Show yourself,” Darius bellowed as he painfully rose to his feet, his body shifting in and out of his human form.
“All in good time,” said the voice. “I get to have my fun first. I’ve waited a long time to find one of you.”
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Someone who now gets to hunt you. Because of your kind and the stupid god Anubis you serve we who live in the other part of the underworld aren’t getting the souls meant to join us. Now that I’ve found you, I get to make you pay. But like I said before, I get to have some fun time first.”
Darius let out a bellow of pain as the change to his half-human and half-jackal form tore through him faster than it ever had. The sound of his bones reshaping was loud in the night air. Once it was over, he stood on legs that barely held him up.
It took a few seconds for him to feel steady. Darius looked down at himself, seeing he was fully shifted, wearing a snow-white kilt instead of his jeans. After a couple of minutes with him not changing back, and not feeling the pull of evil, he wondered if whatever had accosted him had been the one to make him shift. At that moment, Darius hated the fact that he had no control over his shifting ability. He had a sneaky suspicion that he was stuck in this form.