Rising Darkness (Game of Shadows #1)(47)

The man laughed. “That’s a good one. Only humans would mow down miles of rain forests while maundering on about the need to develop and produce clean energy and cut down on air emissions. All of this, while at the same time they fight to keep from bringing their current power plants up to reasonable safety or cleanliness standards. I ask you, how logical is this behavior?”

“I must admit, not very.”

“Honestly. I could go on, but it’s clear I’ve had too much wine.” He pointed at Justin. “Not that I don’t like people. I do. I just believe in calling a spade a spade, and people are f**king morons. Their pets have more sense.”

“Yeah, I miss my dog.” Justin sighed. “My bed, my Tony, my life.”

The man squinted at the last of the champagne. An inch of liquid fizzed at the bottom of the bottle. What the f**k. He was already drunk. He took a swig and swiped at his mouth. “Then you gotta smile at groups like SETI who search so hard for extraterrestrial intelligence. They’re constantly sending out messages of greeting to the cosmos. Is it any surprise no one’s responded when you look at the current conditions on Earth? For Christ’s sake, the human race isn’t even toilet trained.”

“You sure don’t sound as if you like people much,” Justin muttered. “In fact, you sound just like a predator.”

The man finished off the bottle. “Go ahead, tell me—how does a predator sound?”

“Oh, you know, they talk of their prey with a certain amount of contempt.” Justin’s smile was edged, his dark, intelligent eyes hard. “It’s like how abusers justify their actions in their head. It’s never the abuser’s fault. They like to maintain the fiction that they are victimized and put-upon. Those they abuse are too fat, or too stupid, or too infuriating, or unworthy for one reason or another. That makes it all okay for the abuser to crack someone across the face, or to attack someone verbally.”

The man’s eyebrows rose. “You have a point. Maybe I’m just getting old and crotchety.”

“You’re what, all of twenty-eight?” Justin laughed.

The man said in a soft voice, “I thought Sodom and Gomorrah were kicking towns. I helped to destroy the city of Troy, and I taught vivisection to the Babylonians. I’m probably the only person left alive in the world who could be called an expert in ancient Egyptian torture techniques.”

Justin’s eyes had widened as the man spoke. “Ooh-kay.”

“You got to love that Middle East,” the man murmured. He licked a smear of chocolate off of one thumb. “Those folks know how to put a special spin on their cruel streak.”

“I tell you what,” Justin said. “I’m going to write a book. Forget about Interview with the Vampire. I’m going to entitle mine Drunken Binge with a Murderous Whack-Job. Think that could sell?”

The man considered. “I think it has a certain ring.”

“When I hit the New York Times bestseller list, I’ll style my hair in a pageboy and wear lots of black and lace. We’ll have to sell the condo and get something with more atmosphere so I can drape myself broodingly around on the furniture. Tony should start writing poetry. We’ll be all the rage, new to the literary horror scene, you know, yet somehow soothing in our familiarity.”

The man threw back his head and burst out laughing. “Damn, I do like you.”

“That is not as reassuring as one might think,” Justin said.

As they talked, the limousine had reached Grand Rapids. Guided by GPS, the car cruised through the streets in the quiet predawn. It pulled into a motel parking lot and stopped outside the office.

“Excuse me,” the man said to Justin, who had turned silent and grim. He reeled out of the vehicle. The nausea grew worse, so he stuck his finger down his throat and vomited the contents of his stomach by the back wheel. Once he was sure that he had his equilibrium back, he walked into the office, while his driver waited with the engine running.

Inside he hypnotized the sleepy desk clerk and rifled through her memories. He was still too drunk to be as careful as he should, so unfortunately, she might end up with brain damage after he was done. Once he determined which room was farthest away from potential witnesses, he took a master key and walked to it. Tame as a housecat, the limousine purred behind him as the driver kept pace.

He was so close behind Mary, he could taste it. He hated to take time away from the direct hunt, but it couldn’t be helped. He had been expending too much energy. He had coordinated the hunt for her on several different levels, sent two dreams and committed various murders, and he hadn’t rested in over a week.

Originally he had wanted to keep Justin as leverage, but the kind of marathon output he had been engaged in took its toll. He had to use whatever means he could to recoup his flagging energy.

At first running into Justin at Mary’s house had appeared to be a windfall. It seemed like a sensible strategy to take Justin hostage, and to throw his old dead host into Mary’s house and set it on fire. The news of her burning house should have brought her racing back home, where he had been waiting, ex-husband in tow.

Things hadn’t gone as planned. Mary had not only been acting unpredictably, but she was now reunited with the warrior. Worse, they were moving faster than he had anticipated. With the first dream, he had been keeping his promise to Astra. That second dream he sent to Mary had been a judgment call in terms of energy expenditure, but if he had managed to rattle her enough to slow her down, it might have been worth it.