“I’ve seen your victims.” She shook her head lightly, trying to dispel the cloud.
He closed the distance between them. The exquisite scent of him filled her senses again, called out for her to touch him.
“And that’s just it,” he said softly. “At first I desired your ability. Can you imagine the power? I would know where my victims would be next. Stalking them would be all the easier. I could know what they were thinking, when the best time for attack would be.” He brought a hand up, stroked her hair. She pushed him away, but war erupted within her, half of her repulsed and the other inexorably drawn. “But that night on the road, you amazed me. I had no idea how… fine-tuned your gift was. You saw things I had done, places I’d been and even I’d forgotten. I could feel you filling me, feel your thoughts, your visions, as forgotten memories ignited inside me. You drew those experiences out of me. The power of your mind was unequaled to anyone I’d tasted before.”
He kissed her feverishly, cradling her head in his hands. He tasted so good. It couldn’t just be chemical attractants, could it? Could they be this powerful? She wanted him. In the core of her being, she wanted him. Her body ached, throbbed at the thought of it.
He pulled away, eyes sinking into hers, peering into her. “I’ve been alive for a long time, Madeline. Traveling from country to country, century to century. Even I don’t remember all the places I’ve been or the people I’ve known. I’ve acquired so many memories that talking with people has grown painful for me. I’m so aware of how much younger they are. They’ll never know everything I know, never be on a par with my experiences. They don’t have a chance in hell of ever understanding or even knowing me. I’m so old that sometimes I feel insane, filled with the world and its wonders, its terrors and tragedies.
“And I have become one of those terrors, Madeline.”
He embraced her. Her face pressed into the warm crook of his neck, his long hair enveloping her. She felt sharp claws sprout, digging into her back. “I never feel more alive,” he said, “than when I’m tasting someone, devouring their being. I learn what life meant to them. What scared them, what made them love. Through their flesh I experience their childhood, their first love, marriage, and talents… oh, the talents. Those are the best part. Being able to play the violin like a virtuoso, or map any sea route you could want to take, to know the heavens as if you’ve spent a lifetime studying them as a Mayan astronomer, to understand the secrets of the universe as the Newtons and Einsteins of this world do.”
He pulled back, watching her again, his eyes no longer green but deep red and reflective, with no pupils in the scarlet pools. They flashed with an inner luminance and ancient power. “I know darker secrets, too, Madeline. Some secrets I’ve almost forgotten. And some secrets I’ll never forget for what they’ve done to my body.” He lifted his right hand, the fingers grown into sharp, black claws.
With his other hand he continued to hold her, breathing in her scent. “You could know me,” he said, eyes flashing again. His right hand became scaled, reptilian, skin there a multitude of greens and grays. Then the olive skin returned, the claws withdrew to long fingers. “I want you to know me.”
Intoxicated, she stayed there, next to him, filled with a passion that suffused her being.
But somewhere in the recesses of her mind, the murdered ranger swam into view, bleeding body hanging over the rafters. Noah followed that image. Noble Noah, who had hunted the creature tirelessly. Obsessed Noah. She thought of his sandy blond hair, kind green eyes. Of those last desperate hours before he’d completely lost it. He’d been trying to stop a killer. Her killer. What was she doing here then? What was she thinking? “Noah…” she whispered, wondering if he’d ever regain himself again, fight and crawl his way back to sanity and once more find purpose.
“Your thoughts are still with him? After all the terrible things he said to you?”
Madeline tried to find words. Couldn’t.
He grasped her hand. “You and I are closer than he ever will be to you. He could never understand your depth. He’s old, yes, but he’s single-minded. He has thought of nothing but revenge for the last two hundred years.”
She looked away to where the sun sparkled on the river.
“I can give you so much more. You’re already so powerful. I can add to that power.”
She looked at him questioningly.
Sensing her unasked question, he said, “I can give you the eternity of youth. The ability to heal. The freedom to change forms in a single moment.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’d never want to be like you.”
The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. “And you never will be like me. We’re far too different. And you’re too determined to do the ‘right’ thing. But I can live with that.”
For a moment she let him take her down this proposed road that lay in a shadowed future not too far from here. Not only would she be a freak for her visions, but she’d be infinitely more so for her ability to sprout fangs and claws. Sounded like a real promising future. And she’d even have a newfound friend complete with cannibalistic tendencies. Cannibalistic if he was ever even human, that is, she thought grimly.
But the ability to change? To be a chameleon? She wondered how powerful the ability was. Would she be able to turn into mist? To fly? Before she’d only thought of the creature’s terrifying capability once her gift was his own. Now she pictured herself with those skills. A shape-shifter, a psychic-there would be no end to what she could do. Her life wouldn’t be filled with the horrors of crimes or hours spent with the police poring over cold cases, hoping for a lead. And it wouldn’t be filled, because it never could be filled. The richness of that life hit her powerfully. She could travel the world over as anyone she wanted to be. She didn’t have to be the “Weird Girl.” Anonymity, true and abiding, could finally be hers.
“You’re intrigued,” he said, sounding encouraged, watching her mind churn over the possibilities.
“Offer someone the fountain of youth, and they’re bound to be intrigued.”
“True, but that’s not the part that fascinates you, is it?”
She met his gaze, trying not to let herself fall back into that dizzying place of potent desire. Her lips burned to kiss him, hands ached to roam over his body. But it was just chemicals. She had to resist. She bit the corner of her lip, and he smiled.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, stepping closer, tongue lashing out to lick the corner of her mouth.
She was about to say “Don’t,” about to place a hand on his chest to keep him at bay. But instead her tongue met his, and she kissed him, his irresistible taste flooding into her.
No. She stopped, lowering her head, letting the luxuriant cloud dissipate around her. Pheromones. Nothing more. It wasn’t magic. Wasn’t love. It wasn’t anything more than chemistry, issuing from a killer, no less. A beast with a thousand forms, none of which she could trust. All of which could tear her apart and eat the soft insides.
He took her hands in his and looked at her with desire, his eyes flashing. “I hunger for you,” he said. “But not in the way you think. Not like I did up on the mountain, before I… experienced you.”
Madeline’s mind crashed back to that terrifying day, running down the mountain, frozen and soaked with river water, teeth chattering. She thought of the night she spent crammed into the rock crevice. Could this really be the same creature who hunted her that night? That black creature made entirely of shadows, with red saucer eyes that gleamed in the dark? He’d seemed so alien that night, so outside of anything she’d experienced. Yet now she’d felt inside him. She thought of her race to the ranger’s station, and of what she found there in the bathroom, slung over the rafters: the creature up there with the corpse, cracking bones between its teeth. What had it gained from eating that person? Intimate knowledge of the backcountry. Especially of that particular area. An efficient predator indeed.