devastate. But she does not press her advantage. Her instinct is always retreat.”
And it always would be. If necessary, she’d protect herself and others, but her first choice would be to extricate herself from the situation. “She’s still human, Zola. Without someone at her back, retreat is her best option.”
“Now, at her back, she has you.” Zola was tall enough that she didn’t have to tilt her head back very far to meet his eyes. “She knows how to push. You know how to finish what her push has started.”
“Teamwork.” The more he thought about it, the better it sounded. “How’s it working out for you and Walker?”
“Soon enough, you will see.” Her gaze shifted back to the fight, and her mouth softened. “For him, I have even learned more English. What will you learn for Katherine?”
A simple answer, despite how long it had taken him to come up with it. “Everything.”
“Good.” Her fingers brushed his arm. “I am proud of you. Of the work you have done, to learn. I have taught many, many students…but you are the best.”
“The most determined,” he corrected, though her words elicited a smile. “You just happen to be the best teacher.”
“Mmm, flattery will help you little.” She lifted her voice. “Enough. Walker?”
He turned, a question in his eyes. “What do you think? A demonstration, or should we jump right in?”
Before Zola could answer, a distinctive musical tune drifted up from Andrew’s bag. “Figure it out while I grab this call,” he said, already crossing the floor.
It was Patrick’s number. Andrew flicked the screen to answer, his heart pounding. “Did you find something?”
“Yeah.” Patrick’s voice sounded numb. “Bodies. A whole lot of them. It’s not quite Jonestown, but it is one ugly, ugly mess.”
“What?” Keeping his tone modulated was an impossibility, and Kat and the others turned to frown at him. “Say that again.”
“It looks like a mass-fucking-suicide up here. At least one of the bodies is the astral projector Anna saw in the woods.”
So they’d found the cult—maybe. Andrew reached for his keys. “Where are you?”
“Outside an abandoned church a few miles off of I-10. Just north of Pass Christian.” Patrick cleared his throat. “They found out Anna and I were coming, I’m guessing. This scene is fresh, and way too big for any of my contacts to cover up.”
“I’ll call Jackson.” If anyone knew how to route that sort of investigation, it would be him. “Sit tight, but you and Anna keep your eyes peeled for trouble. We’re on our way.”
Kat was breathing too fast when he hung up. Zola and Walker stared at him—but then, they would have heard Patrick’s side of the conversation. Kat watched him too, her eyes unblinking. “Something happened?”
“They found the cult.” He dropped beside his bag on the bench and grabbed his shoes. “Get your clothes. We’re going to Mississippi.”
“I need to go in.” Kat’s voice was resolute, unyielding.
Jackson and Mackenzie stood outside, and Andrew raised a hand in greeting as he engaged the parking brake. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. The way Patrick described it…” He grimaced. “It’s not going to be pleasant.”
“I know.” Kat rubbed her hands against her jeans and stared ahead. “I don’t like dead bodies. They’re so empty they echo, and it feels wrong. But I need to see it. I need this to be over in my head.”
“I can tell you,” he insisted. “When I get out, I mean. Kat, really—think about it, okay?”
“I am. I did.” She finally shifted in the seat to meet his eyes. “Death doesn’t give me nightmares. Not like killing or feeling someone die.”
The kind of death Patrick had described was enough to give
Jackson opened Kat’s door as Andrew rounded the vehicle. “We’ve got to make it quick,” he told them. “A buddy of mine has the right authorities on the way, and anyone who doesn’t want to make a statement needs to be gone by the time they get here.”
“I don’t think we’ll be hanging out.” Andrew closed his hand around Kat’s. “Ready?”
She nodded and tightened her fingers until her grip bordered on painful. “Is Anna inside?”
“With Patrick,” Mackenzie confirmed. “They’re getting pictures and whatever else they need.”
This close to the small block building, the scent of burning flesh was strong enough for a human to detect. Andrew had to fight not to recoil from the doorway, but there was no turning back. Answers lay inside, information they needed.
It certainly looked like a tiny country church, with rows of long benches and a small pulpit—the kind of place that preached fire and brimstone. Andrew shuddered and blinked against the acrid smoke that hung heavy in the air and stung his nose.
Anna rose from where she knelt by the stage, a haunted look in her eyes. “Patrick’s in the back. That’s where the—where the bodies are.”
Kat took a breath. Took another, and this one was shallow and unsteady. “I’m never going to be this person, am I?”
Andrew pulled her close and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling her clean, sweet scent. “It’s a bunch of burned bodies, sweetheart. No one is this person, not really.”
“It doesn’t matter if I shield, or if they’re not already dead.” Her shudder made her entire body tremble.
“I’ve felt agony. I’ve known what it’s like to die from it. I thought it wouldn’t be as bad…but I can’t stop imagining what they went through. I can’t stop feeling it.”
Kat had more reason than most to turn away from this place. Not only because of the pain and death, but because
“I’m going to go stand with Mac and Jackson.” She managed a tiny smile. “No shame in that, right?
Mac’s a badass.”
“I’ll come with you,” Anna said quickly. “It’s a little much for me too, and I don’t mind admitting it.”
Kat brushed her fingers over Andrew’s before retreating, Anna at her side.
In the back he found Patrick snapping a picture of one of the corpses. The bounty hunter glanced up, his eyes numb. “You may not want to be back here. A shapeshifter sense of smell is not an advantage.”
“I can handle it,” Andrew lied. “Which one is the guy from the other night? The astral psychic?”
Patrick straightened and crossed the room, stepping over outstretched limbs and skirting spots where paper and wood still smoldered. “This one. We found their IDs on the desk in the back office.”
“Maybe they didn’t want to chance not having their families be able to identify them.”
Patrick shrugged. “We left them. Anna got pictures so we’d have the names and info.”
Andrew knelt by the corpse, the only one untouched by the flames. Foamy spittle flecked with blood had dried around his mouth, and his face was frozen in a rictus of pain. “They didn’t burn themselves alive, I guess.”
“Not quite.” Patrick gestured toward the far corner. “Looks like poisoning. There’s a tub over there, along with a few bottles—phenobarbital, cyanide and Valium. Jackson said—” His mouth tightened. “He was pretty sure whoever mixed it up had suicide in mind.”
The astral projector must have gone last, after torching the others. It’d take a crazy person, all right, to still want to chug poison after watching his friends die ugly, excruciating deaths. Crazy—or dedicated.
“Are there any other notes, documents? Anything in the office?”
“A lot of it burned. They had files, but they brought them in here.” Patrick nodded to a mess of ashes.
“Anna dug some stuff out of it. Not sure what else is salvageable, though.”
The last, desperate acts of people with no options. “The astral psychic must have told them what happened. There aren’t many bodies here, all things considered.” A quick, nauseating count. “Ten. Maybe not enough to mount another attack, especially if they sent their best fighters the first time around.”
