On the Prowl

no.” He pulled himself together and started the car. “I came to make sure you weren’t arrested. The riot delayed me. Good thing it was a small one.”
    She made a choked sound. After a moment, he realized it was a laugh. He glanced at her, unsure whether this was a time when their humor diverged or if she was hysterical.
    She seemed all right, though pale. “The riot delayed you. God. All right. If you aren’t arresting me, what are you doing?”
    “Keeping Knox from arresting you.”
    “But…Nathan, if they’ve got a warrant, I can’t just hide. I don’t want to be arrested, but it’s a mistake. It’s not like they have any real evidence against me. They can’t, so they’ll have to let me go. But if I evade arrest I look guilty, which will make it harder to persuade them…” Her voice wobbled. “How could they think it was me? This doesn’t make sense. Are you sure there isn’t a mistake?”
    “I’m sure. The sheriff and I discussed the case with Chief Roberts. Roberts is deeply prejudiced against the Gifted. He knows about the meeting you had at your apartment last night, though he’s mistaken about its nature—thinks it was a coven meeting. He has a witness who saw you leave The Bar with Jimmie Shaw last night just after midnight.”
    “The Bar?” She was bewildered. “But I don’t go there. I’ve never been there.”
    “I told them I was with you at that time. The sheriff believed me. Roberts didn’t. He said a jury wouldn’t accept my testimony since I’m not human.”
    “You told them…but I was home at midnight, asleep. Asleep alone. You didn’t get there until two o’clock.”
    “Yes,” he said, patient. “But they can’t know what time I arrived. Do you mind if they believe we’re lovers?”
    She waved that away. “That’s not the problem. You tried to give me an alibi, and you meant well, but that witness—she couldn’t have seen me. It’s someone else, someone who looks like me.”
    Someone who looked like her, yes. Or something. “He. The witness is Ed Bates. He was your patient, I understand.”
    “Soft tissue trauma to the neck and shoulders. We had several sessions…but Ed knows me. He must know that wasn’t…was he drunk? That’s it,” she said, sounding pleased that something at last made sense. “He must have been drunk.”
    “Three other witnesses gave descriptions of the woman who left with Shaw. I spoke with one of them. She has a poor memory for names, but a good one for faces. She described you perfectly.”
    Kai didn’t say anything for several moments. He wanted to take her hand, to reassure her with the alchemy of touch. That was what he would have needed at such a time, but he didn’t understand human rules for touching, which changed from one culture to the next, from one decade to the next. He wasn’t sure when touch was welcome between friends in this era.
    If they were lovers…
    She spoke before he could make up his mind, looking down at the hands she’d pleated together in her lap. “Do you think I did it, then?”
    “No.” He was glad to be able to reassure her of that much. “You’ve never killed.”
    “Hey. The telepath’s sitting over here, not behind the steering wheel. You can’t know that.”
    But he could. He did. Nathan struggled to find words for this knowing, but it was woven of so many threads…. Some killers possessed a psychic scent, but not all. Not even most. And some humans who had never killed smelled like killers because the potential ran high in them. Those were the ones who wanted to kill, wanted the blood and power and destruction of it. Many killed without having that need—in war or to protect another, because of hunger or fear or a fleeting rage.
    And some killed as Nathan did, as part of a hunt, though they hunted nonsentients—deer, rabbits, birds. A very few hunted and killed their fellows, but not as Nathan did. For them, he felt pity. They seemed to have some of the same instincts he possessed, yet they lacked others, those that should have connected them to their fellows, leaving them twisted and terrible. They killed because it was the only connection they understood.
    A hellhound did not kill for that reason, but he understood the need for connection, the depth of that need. He’d hunted serial killers because they couldn’t be stopped otherwise, but he’d killed them cleanly.
    How would Kai feel when she understood that Nathan, too, was a killer? It was a question he didn’t