Raintree: Haunted (Raintree 2)

PROLOGUE

Sunday—Midnight

The adrenaline was pumping so hard and fast that Tabby couldn’t make herself stand entirely still. Even the quick climb to this third floor walkup hadn’t dimmed her excitement. She wrinkled her nose in disdain as she studied the green apartment door and anxiously rose up onto her toes, then dropped down again. The paint on the door was peeling badly; the wood was warped; the number was crooked. What self-respecting Raintree would live in a dump like this one?

Tabby had been waiting for this moment for so long. Forever, it sometimes seemed. She hadn’t waited patiently, but she had waited. Everything had to be perfect before the assault began; that had been stressed to her on more than one occasion. Finally it was time. She balanced the pizza box in her left hand as she knocked again with her right, harder and faster than she had before. A giddiness rose within her, and she savored it. She’d trained for this moment, had been practicing for almost a year, but finally the time was here.

“Who is it?” an obviously annoyed woman asked from the other side of the weathered green door.

“Pizza delivery,” Tabby answered.

She listened as the security chain was undone with the slide of metal on metal and the rattle of sturdy links. A dead bolt turned, and finally—finally—the lock in the doorknob clicked and the door swung open.

Tabby took quick stock of the woman before her. Twenty-two years old, five foot four, green eyes, short pink hair. Her.

“I think there’s been a mistake, unless…” the pink-haired woman began. She didn’t get the chance to say another word.

Tabby forced her way into the apartment, pushing the Raintree woman back into the shabby living room and slamming the door behind her. She dropped the empty pizza box, revealing the knife she held in her left hand. “Scream and I’ll kill you,” she said before Echo had a chance to make a sound.

The girl’s eyes got big. Funny, but Tabby had expected the Raintree eyes to be more striking. She’d heard so much about them. Echo’s eyes were an average, unexciting blue-gray-green, not at all special.

One swipe and this job would be done, but Tabby didn’t want it to be over too soon. Her gift was one of empathy, but rather than experiencing others’ emotions, she craved their fear. Hate and horror tasted sweet when Tabby allowed her gift free rein. The dark sensations she drank in made her stronger. At this moment she fed off Echo Raintree’s terror, and it felt good. It made her strong, physically and mentally. That terror fed the giddiness.

“I don’t have much money,” Echo said, pathetic and whining, and growing more and more afraid with every second that passed. “Whatever you want…”

“Whatever I want,” Tabby repeated as she forced Echo away until her back was against the wall. Literally. What she really wanted was this girl’s power. Prophecy. There was power in prophecy, properly used, though judging by this crappy apartment, Echo had not made the best of her talents. What a shame that something so extraordinary had to be wasted on this trembling doormat.

Tabby sometimes dreamed that when she killed, she absorbed the powers of her victim. It should be possible, should be an extension of her gift, but so far she hadn’t been able to make it happen. One day, when her power was properly nourished as it should be, she would find the dark magic to take the next step in her own evolution.

Wishing the gift of prophecy could somehow fly from this Raintree’s soul into her own, Tabby touched the girl’s slender, pale throat with the tip of her knife. She made a small cut, and the girl gasped, and oh, the rush of fear that filled the air was tasty, and very, very strong.

She could play with Echo Raintree all night, but Cael wanted the job done quickly and efficiently. He’d stressed that to Tabby more than once, when she’d received her assignment. This was not the time to play but to be a soldier. A warrior. Much as she would love to stay here a while and amuse herself with the Raintree, Tabby definitely didn’t want to end up on Cael’s bad side.

She smiled and drew the knife very slightly away from the drop of blood on the girl’s pale throat. Echo looked slightly relieved, and Tabby let the frightened woman believe, for that moment, that this was a simple robbery that would soon be over.

Nothing was over. It had just begun.

ONE

Monday—3:37 a.m.

When Gideon’s phone rang in the middle of the night, it meant someone was dead. “Raintree,” he answered, his voice rumbling with the edges of sleep.

“Sorry to wake you.”