“Shit.” He rubbed his chin. “So how do they go from pleasuring someone to killing ’em?”
Not an easy move. “Most of them don’t,” she said, placing deliberate emphasis on most. “But, sometimes, certain succubi—or incubi—” though from what she’d learned the females were reputed to be far more dangerous than the males, “well, they can get…carried away in the heat of the moment.”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “Yeah, that can happen.”
Her heart rate sped up. “No, ah, not like that. The power they get through sex isn’t enough for them. It’s really…more like stealing life. The pleasure they get, it’s life. It’s power. Energy. If the succubus or incubus doesn’t shut off the flow of power, if they keep linking with the prey,” not the best word choice, probably, but it was all she had, “they can literally drain every last drop of life from the body—”
“And leave a dead man in the bed.” A muscle flexed along his jaw. “Hell.”
“Succubi and incubi are generally mid-level demons. Fives or sixes. They can only kill like this when sex is heavily involved.”
Normally, humans didn’t have too much to fear from the lower-level demons. It was the all-powerful level-tens that made real nightmares into reality for humans.
“Trust me,” Colin said. “Sex has been heavily involved in these cases.”
Yeah, she’d kind of figured that from the naked bodies and bondage. But…“A level-nine or-ten demon could also do something like this—with the right set of circumstances, anyway. You know they can control minds—”
“Assholes like Niol? Yeah, I know they get off on playing with humans.”
“—but they can place a suggestion a human’s mind, literally, for death.”
He huffed out a hard breath. “You’re telling me a level-ten can tell a person he’s going to die, and then the poor bastard would just keel over?”
“Theoretically, it should be possible. The body would temporarily mimic whatever suggestion the demon gave—whether it was a heart attack or a stroke. The victim would think he or she was truly having the attack. And if you think it, well, sometimes that can just be enough to kill you.”
Colin stared at her in disbelief. Poor guy. For a supernatural, he still didn’t quite understand the way the world worked. She tried to reassure him. “But I-I’ve never known of an actual case like that.” Though just the thought of that much power scared the hell out of her.
“But you do know of a case where a sex demon has killed someone.” He pounced on what she had said, and what she had not.
Emily stared straight at him. Now this was the hard part. Colin was her lover, the shifter she loved, but he was also a cop, and she wasn’t about to break her professional standards. “I really couldn’t say.”
“Then, baby, you’ve just said enough.”
Her back teeth ground together. “There is another who could kill this way. The cazador del alma—”
“What? What the hell is that? Spanish?”
“Yes, it roughly means soul hunter. The cazador has the touch of death. He finds those whose time has run out. He touches them—
”
“And he f**king kills them. Just great.” Colin shook his head. “So I’ve got some hunter out there who can kill humans at will—”
“Cazadores don’t usually kill humans,” Emily felt obliged to tell him. “They usually are the ones who go after Other when they go bad.” Though the cazadores were extremely rare these days.
“These vics were human.” Absolutely certain.
“Then they wouldn’t be a cazador’ s usual prey.”
“Not unless the guy is just another crazy bastard—which is a definite possibility. Shit.” Colin glanced back at the table and the closed file. “I need to know which of these ass**les is in my town.”
“They aren’t going to advertise their presence.” The deadliest beings often kept the lowest profiles, striking out only when necessary. “Look, there could be others, let me research—”
“Oh, you do your research, baby, and let me know everything you find out. In the meantime, I’m gonna start hunting and—” His eyes widened. “Sonofabitch. ”
“Colin?”
He growled. The sound more wolf that man. “We f**king had her in the station.”
“Who?”
He jumped to his feet. “A succubus. I’d bet my life on it. I could smell her—damn, the scent alone was enough to—” He broke off, rather wisely, Emily thought.
But she still had to ask, “Enough to what?”
“Enough to make me back the hell away from her, fast. Because she wasn’t you.”
Oh, very good answer. She rose quickly, grabbed his T-shirt, bunched it in her fist, and dragged him close for a hard, deep kiss.
One good thing about wolf shifters. Their loyalty was sacred to them, just as sacred as a mate.
The bad thing, well, that would be that some of them were psychotic. Luckily for her, Colin was as sane as they came, just with a decidedly aggressive streak that made him perfect as a cop.
“I’ve got to call Brooks, let him know—”
Now here was the problem. “Just what, exactly? That you think you have a suspect and she’s a demon?” Emily hesitated. “He still doesn’t even know the truth about you yet, does he?”
A fast shake of his head.
“So how do you think he’ll take the news of a demon stalking the streets?”
Not very well. They both knew that answer.
Colin exhaled. “I’ll talk to the captain. See if he wants me to work this case on my own.”
She didn’t like that idea one bit. “Partners are supposed to watch each other’s backs. You’re not supposed to be out there chasing down killers on your own.” A cold knot lodged in her stomach. Emily knew that Colin was physically one of the strongest supernaturals around, but he wasn’t invincible. As far as she knew, no one was.
So she’d feel much better if someone was out there patrolling with him while he hunted.
“You can’t keep him in the dark forever.” They’d had the same argument before. “I know your last partner screwed you—”
“No, baby, he tried to kill me when he found out what I was.”
“Brooks isn’t Mike, okay? You don’t know what he’ll do.”