Shannon Curtis - Witch Hunter

“It’s...complicated.”

She arched an eyebrow. Well, he guess she at least deserved a little bit of an explanation.

“I receive the name when a crime is committed, and I go hunt.” Simple, really.

She frowned as she glanced at his chest. “I saw...how.” Her voice was soft, confused. “I haven’t committed any of those crimes, though.”

His eyes narrowed at her word selection. Those crimes. Did that mean there were other crimes she had committed? He was getting curious about those coins she’d mentioned on the beach.

“It’s never happened before,” he admitted.

She frowned. “How can you be certain?”

Cold horror washed over him at the prospect. “Because I wouldn’t be able to continue,” he said roughly. The thought he could have killed other innocents...it would crush him. Cripple him. He shook his head. No. If that had been the case, the Ancestors would have yanked his ass into the Other Realm. The punishment for a Witch Hunter to break the laws they’ve sworn to uphold would be extreme, to say the least.

She folded her arms and strolled over toward another door he only just noticed. “Soooo,” she said slowly, “when a witch breaks one of the Three, they...brand you with that witch’s name, and you go hunt? Like a guard dog? Sic ‘em, Rex?”

He tilted his head. “Kind of...” he said slowly, hating the analogy, no matter how apt it seemed. She opened the door and entered what was a small kitchen, with a door leading to the backyard, and another that led to a small bathroom, and a door that led to what looked like an addition to the back of the house. Shop. Factory. Whatever the hell this place was. She crossed over to the stove and lit the stove, then placed a kettle on it.

“But how do you know you’re going after a witch for something serious? I mean, what if the Ancestors want you to just warn someone?” She reached up to a cupboard, and Dave’s gaze flicked down to where her loose blouse rose above the belt of her skirt. He wanted to focus on the gold skin of her back and side, but his eyes widened when he saw the decorative panel at the back of her belt, with two metal prongs that looked suspiciously like the hilts of the blades she’d used on him. How about that.

He forced himself to concentrate on the conversation, and he narrowed his eyes at her words. “Do you feel like you’ve needed to be warned about something, Sullivan?” What was this chick into?

“Sully,” she corrected him, then shook her head, her expression forced into something that almost looked innocent. “Uh, no. Not really. I just—I guess I never thought I’d ever have the opportunity to talk with the Witch Hunter, and I want to understand...how do you know you’re doing the right thing?”

Wow. She cut straight to the heart of his current doubts. He wanted to shrug it off with some sort of general comment, but Sullivan—no, Sully —deserved at least the truth from him, in all its unadorned, vicious glory.

“When a witch breaks one of the Three,” he said, referring to the Three Immutable Laws of Witchcraft—never draw on nature’s power to provoke another to an unlawful act—never seek power through the suffering of others, and never draw on nature’s power for personal gain at the expense of another’s well-being, “I am delivered their name, and I see their crime.”

She frowned. “You see the crime?” Her face relaxed into something he could only call sympathy. “That’s got to be hard.” She turned as the kettle whistled, and lifted it off the stove. She pulled down a tin and spooned tea into two strainers and popped them into the ceramic mugs she’d pulled from the cupboard.

He was glad he was wearing his sunglasses, and could hide is surprise as she made the tea. He hadn’t told anyone about that before, and it was difficult to broach such a personal subject. He’d never expected to feel sympathy directed toward him over it, but she was right. It was hard. There were some things you just couldn’t unsee. Some crimes—especially the kids, damn it. He swallowed as he shut down that line of memory. He’d seen his own kind do terrible, horrible, heinous things. He’d seen them do great things, too, but when dealing with the dregs, you started to feel like you were covered in the muck, and it was all you generally got to see.

He cleared his throat. “I see the crimes, so I know what they’ve done, and generally where I can find them.”

Her hands halted, and she slowly turned to face him, her face showing her confusion, and perhaps a hint of nervousness. “What did you see me do?”

He reached for one of the mugs—he couldn’t quite believe the woman he’d tried to kill the day before was calmly making him tea in her kitchen.

His lips quirked. Sully Timmerman was proving to be an unexpected intrigue, on so many levels. “I didn’t see you.”

She frowned, confused. “Then why come after me?”

He sighed. “Usually, I see the crime through the killer’s eyes, and can be with them for as long as it takes to identify them, or their whereabouts. This time I got neither.”

Her frown deepened as her confusion did, and he leaned against the doorjamb. “I saw what Sullivan Timmerman did. Not you, this...monster. I saw—” he hesitated. It was one thing for him to witness these horrendous acts, he didn’t need to spread that taint to this woman.

Her brow eased. “It’s okay. You can’t surprise me.”

His mouth tightened. “Oh, I think I can.”

“I think I have a right to know what I was accused of, don’t you?” Her tone was gentle, yet with a core of steel-like implacability. She wasn’t about to be fobbed off with half-truths and generalizations. She wanted—and deserved—the facts.

“I see through the witch’s eyes,” he explained. “So I see what they do. I saw someone get stabbed, and some ritualistic markings, the drinking of blood...”

She shuddered. “Yeah, well, I didn’t do any of that. What did this witch look like?”

Dave grimaced, then sipped his tea. “That’s the problem. Usually I can stay with the witch until he or she looks in the mirror, or passes a window, and I can see their reflection. Usually I get to see the neighborhood, some more of the crime scene, enough to establish their location... This time I got bumped.”

“Bumped?”

He took another sip, nodding. Once the dam broke, it felt easier to talk, easier to explain. There was something surprisingly relaxing about Sully Timmerman. “Bumped. He—or she—drank the blood, said a spell and bam, I was out of there.”

“So you didn’t get to see this witch’s face, or where they were?”

“I saw an alley, I saw a sign on a building—Mack’s Gym, by the way—and I had the name.”

Sully’s mouth pouted as she mulled over his words. “Mack’s Gym is in the next town...” Then she shook her head. “But I don’t understand. My name?”

He nodded. “Yep. Sullivan Timmerman.” He frowned, then glanced down at the tea. “What’s in this?” He was finding it too easy to talk.

“Oh, it’s just a little lavender, lemon balm, a tidge of nutmeg...”

His eyes narrowed. “Antianxiety?” Most of those ingredients were relaxants.

She shrugged. “A calmative. I thought you could use it.”

He had to admit, it worked. He’d come here with his gut roiling, concerned about how she’d receive him, whether she’d hear him out...whether she’d forgive him. But...how did she know? Realization dawned, and he put the mug down.

“You’re an empath.” It wasn’t a question. Everything added up. She’d made him a poultice to ease his pain and help him heal, had made him as comfortable as possible on his bed of sand and had displayed an unexpected insight to his turmoil—accepting he had a job to do.