Some of those people didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Some, like Kate, had been hard to convince but smart enough to listen. Those who had a trace of the ability occasionally thought of it as normal, something they thought that everyone could do. It was anything but normal, and it grew rarer all the time as super-predators killed off anyone they found with the ability.
The biggest problem was the hostility he sometimes encountered. Some people didn’t like him invading their lives with what they considered crazy notions. Their ability had never manifested itself, so they thought he was a nutcase. He always did his best to convince them to at least listen to him, because the chances were that sooner or later one of those rare super-predators would come along and slaughter them. He tried to help them come to terms with their ability.
Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t.
He often wished he could simply leave these people alone to live their lives. Most weren’t aware of their rare vision. Others viewed it as a freak feeling they’d had once without knowing for sure if it was true or not.
Often, because it scared them, they foolishly ignored the feeling. Since it only happened to them once and there was no way to confirm their feeling, it came across to them as merely fearing a dangerous-looking person. Most of the time they wanted nothing more than to deny what they had felt so they could forget the incident.
But all Jack had to do was look into their eyes and he could see it in them. Jack couldn’t see killers for who they were. His singular ability was confined to recognizing these people who had the ability to recognize killers. As far as he knew, he was the only one of his kind. Because of that, he felt an obligation to use his ability to try to save lives.
But he often wished he could just leave these people alone.
The only problem was that there were super-predators who could also recognize them for their ability. That kind liked nothing more than to eliminate those individuals, the way a wolf liked to be rid of the sheepdog.
This rare ability was genetic, so it often passed down in families. Because of that, those super-predators would sometimes kill the entire family to wipe out that trait.
Jack wished he could leave this woman, Angela, alone to live her life in this backwater town. In such a small city he expected she had never actually encountered a killer. But he was also aware that people with this ability somehow drew predators to them. He didn’t know how or why, he only knew that they did.
He also knew that members of Angela Constantine’s family, both in America and in Italy, had already been murdered by a super-predator named Cassiel. Since Cassiel was back in the United States, it was certainly possible that he would come after Angela or her mother. From what Jack had learned about Sally Constantine, he was far more concerned about Angela.
On top of that, there were troubling connections that he had to look into.
Jack sighed as he started across the parking lot, sorry that he was going to have to intrude in this woman’s life and possibly scare the wits out of her with talk of killers. He hated it when that happened.
What weighed him down the most was that it turned out far too often that the people he found ended up murdered. After all, those super-predators were also hunting them. Cassiel already had the scent of blood from this family.
Jack often went to sleep wishing he had never found Uziel and a whole list of others like him who were now dead. He knew that by doing what he did he was able to save lives. But he often went to sleep seeing in his mind’s eye the tragic, bloody end to the lives of people he had found, or found too late.
Jack pulled open the dented metal door to the bar and was immediately hit by a wall of sound from the loud music and the talking and laughter. Once inside, he stood off to the side in the back for a time, taking in the place, letting his eyes adjust to the rather dim light. There was a doorway to the side of the bar, probably going to a stockroom and office in back.
A row of neon signs for different beer brands and various kinds of hard liquor lined the back wall above shelves packed with bottles. In the center of the ceiling a rotating ball sent little spots of light dancing around the room, playing over all the people, making them seem to melt together into a single undulating mass. Christmas lights were strung at the top of the walls all around the room. The dark-painted concrete floor was scuffed and scratched. Framed chalkboards were hung on the wall to the right. Drink specials and menus of a few light appetizers were written in chalk of various colors.
But it was the neon lights behind the bar and others around the room, most of them red, that cast their crimson spell over the place. They made the bar intimate and rather cozy, despite the place being decidedly on the sleazy side.
It was a dive, but a dive with an oddly homey appeal.
Young women in short skirts or cutoff shorts teetered on high heels as they delivered trays of drinks to tables around the room. Jack had one photo of Angela Constantine from her driver’s license and another from the bond for her courier service, so he had a pretty good idea of who he was looking for.
He finally spotted her behind the bar, making drinks for the waitresses circulating around the room as well as tending to the men lined up on barstools. She didn’t have blue hair like on her driver’s license. It was now platinum blond tipped in red. It looked like she had dipped the ends of her hair in blood that had gradually dissipated as it soaked upward into the platinum.
With that hair she stood out from everyone else in the room. She was impossible to miss.
From a distance he couldn’t really get a good look at her eyes, so he wove his way across the room full of people.
He found an empty stool down at the end of the bar, where it turned a corner to close off that end of the bar. It left just enough room for one barstool. Being where it was around the corner at the end, it afforded him a view down the length of the bar, and behind it. The seat would allow him to get a better look so he could assess Angela Constantine.
Even though he had seen a couple of photos of her, she was not at all what he expected. Not in the least. She was altogether more than he had expected.
She had on blue jean shorts with pockets hanging down below the cutoff legs. Her open-front shirt over a tube top showed her navel and a lot of territory below it before reaching the low top of the shorts. Most of all, her shorts showed off her stunning, long legs to full advantage. Her shorts didn’t leave much to the imagination about what little they did cover. She had on suede boots that came up almost to her knees and only served to help draw attention to the length of her bare legs.
When she came closer to serve a guy sitting not too far away, Jack saw that she had several tattoos on her arms, but they were unlike any tattoos he had ever seen before. These were not done as art or decoration. Each was small and they clearly were not intended for others to admire. They obviously had some meaning to her, and that’s all they were there for. They were personal.
On the inside of each wrist was a small tattoo of a delicate feather. Those were the only slightly decorative tattoos of the lot, and yet they were too small to be decoration. It looked more like it was meant to be a reminder to herself. He guessed it was in reference to her name, which meant “angel” in Italian.
Her fingernails weren’t long, but they were painted a deep, blood red. The back of her ear was lined with rings. Above the black mascara and eyeliner was a creamy black eye shadow with little flecks of copper in it. Her lipstick was a moist, rich, luscious red. She could easily be featured in an ad for makeup—especially lipstick. She had that achingly evocative model look.
He would never have expected it from the kinds of elements she had put together, but now that he saw her up closer, he realized that her platinum hair fit perfectly with the rest of her, creating a complete, totally unique look.
She was staggeringly attractive.