His muscles loosened in relief. She didn't fear him, wasn't upset – and she didn't go on to ask the obvious questions, the ones he wasn't sure he could answer. "I said I wanted to find the killer's scent. I meant the physical scent, but I... there's more, for me. I pick up other traces, psychic traces, but sensually, as a smell. Like you receive thoughts visually."
"Oh." She cocked her head. "I like that. It makes me feel less of a freak to know your talent works a bit like mine."
"You are not a freak."
She tapped her head. "This knows that." She touched her chest. "This doesn't. Did you get a scent from the bodies?"
He grimaced. "I never reached the bodies. The police have them under guard."
"I guess the morgue usually has someone there. An attendant."
"I allowed for that," he said dryly. He'd been sloppy, but not that sloppy. "I didn't expect officers to be stationed at the bodies." He could have killed or disarmed them, of course, but one action would have been immoral, the other stupid. He shook his head. "I don't understand why they were there. Chief Roberts is narrow, not stupid. He must have some reason to guard the bodies, but I can't come up with one."
"He may be thinking of vampires. A lot of people are right now. The bodies were drained of blood, right? So he might have posted people to watch and make sure they don't – well, rise or something."
Nathan snorted. "If he's trying to find a vampire, he's wasting his time. They don't exist. Not the way they're depicted in fiction."
"But... they do exist?"
"Blood-drinkers are real, but not native to this realm. Most of them aren't intelligent, and none of them reproduce by endowing their victims with the ability to rise from the dead."
She grinned. "Or go around seducing young virgins?"
They'd watched Interview With the Vampire together last Halloween. Funny show. He'd chuckled at what she claimed were all the wrong places. "Exactly."
"So you think it's a human who killed those people?"
"Unlikely. A deranged or evil human might drink blood, but he or she couldn't suck out the entire ten pints in the average body. Nor is it easy to drain a body completely in other ways, and the victims were apparently exsanguinated in the same places the bodies were found."
"Then it's an animal of some sort. Something that came in on the power wind."
"Probably." He considered his words for a moment. "By 'animal' I don't just mean inhuman. I mean a species incapable of complex communication."
"Communication? You think that's the dividing line between animal and, uh... I guess I can't say human, but I'm not sure how to put it."
"Sentient is the closest word in English."
"Okay, then. I would have thought the level of sentience depended on intelligence, the ability to reason."
"Reason can be denned in different ways, and intelligence is a slippery scale to apply. Is a severely retarded man a beast?"
She grimaced. "You make your point."
"Sophisticated communication which conveys concepts rather than just 'danger' or 'food' is essential because without it, intelligence and moral reasoning don't develop. A potentially intelligent being that is unable to communicate effectively never develops its potential. Take cats, for example."
"Uh... cats?"
"Cats are potentially sentient, but only those who live closely with other sentients develop fully because they lack the stimulus of clear communication. Not all cats develop a high level of sentience," he added. "But some do. The ones with good telepathic skills."
"Cats." Her voice and expression were blank. Then a smile spread across her face like the early colors of dawn. She shook her head, rueful, smiling. "I think I'm weirded out. Also wiped," she said, rising. "And so are you. Do you want to stay here for what's left of the night?"
"That would be good." Healing drained him. Delaying the healing drained him more. "Did you see that in my colors?" he asked, suddenly curious. "That I need rest?"
"Not the colors so much as the way they're behaving. Droopy and sluggish."
He nodded. That made sense – his thoughts felt sluggish. "Thank you. For the offer of your couch, and for helping."
"You're welcome. I'll get you a pillow and a cover." A yawn caught her, and she stretched.
Long-buried feelings stirred inside him. He had to be stern with his body in order to quiet it before she noticed. "A sheet would be welcome. I don't need a blanket. Is it all right if I remove my jeans? They're wet."
"Sure." Her smile came a shade too quickly, a tint too bright. "I'll get you that sheet."
He didn't remove his pants yet. He'd do that after she was in bed. Kai couldn't regulate her body the way he did, nor could she hide her response from him. He couldn't hide his response from her, either, for that matter – she'd see it in his colors if he allowed himself to become aroused. So he hadn't. He didn't want to raise expectations. But he allowed himself the rare indulgence of enjoying the way her body moved beneath her loose pajamas as she left the room. Maybe...
He wouldn't rush things. But he knew her now for a friend, so... maybe.
Chapter 4
It was still dark when Nathan woke to three bars from the William Tell Overture. He rolled into a sitting position, reached for his jeans, and pulled his cell phone out of the pocket.
Six-oh-five, he noted. And the call was from dispatch. "Hunter."
The phone had woken Kai, too. She drifted out to stand in the doorway to her bedroom while he listened, acknowledged his instructions, then disconnected. He stepped into his jeans, which were clammy and damp still. She didn't ask any questions, but they hung, suspended, in her eyes.
"There's been another killing," he told her, running a hand over his chin. Bristles. He'd have to shave. "The body appears to have been exsanguinated, like the others. It's about three miles from here, just off County Road 60."
Her eyes widened. "But that – that's our road. Nathan, who was it?"
"I don't have an ID." She'd had friends over last night. Gifted friends. She'd worry that the victim was one of them, and with reason. Last night's party and the proximity of the body might not be coincidence. "All I know is that the victim was male."
"Pete... Pete was with Meagan. They wouldn't have gone that way. Neither would Ryan, but Mark – he and Andrew live in Odessa. They might have taken 60. It runs into 1788, which would bring them back to 191, so – but you know all that." She scrubbed both hands over her face as if trying to rub sense in, sleep out. She dropped her hands. "I'm babbling. You know all those roads."
He could see the fear swimming in her eyes, could all but feel the cold breath of it on her neck. Impulsively he reached out, took her arms. She was warm beneath the flannel. He didn't want to let go. "I don't know when the killing took place. The body could have been there awhile. I don't know yet."
She nodded, mute in her fear.
"I'll call. As soon as I'm able and have an ID, I'll call."
"That's right – you'll be investigating, won't you? That's outside city limits."
"Yes." The sheriff's office would handle this one. He'd be able to hunt openly. Eagerness burned in him, a cold fire since he lacked a target. But not, he hoped, for much longer.
Reluctantly he released her. He seldom touched her, as touch made things harder for both of them, but he couldn't regret it this time. He paused at the door. "We don't know that the killer only strikes at night. Be careful."
She shoved her hair back. "You, too."
"I'm not in the kind of danger you are."
"You may not be Gifted, but you... whatever you are, you're of the Blood. It might want your blood, too."
He couldn't argue with her logic. "Of the Blood" meant one of the inherently magical races, and he surely fit that description. Whatever was drinking blood seemed to be after the punch of magic some carried in their blood. His would do very well for that. Better, probably, than any other in this world.