Page 5 of Turn That River Red

I haven’t hunted like this in years, although there was aperiod of time when it was my preferred method. What got me on this kick was Charlotte. She’s another of my kind, but unlike most of us, she didn’t know what she was for the first thirty years of her life thanks to her upbringing in the California branch of the Church of the Well. Her adoptive parents—not Hunters themselves, of course—did some kind of charm meant to stave off the devil, but instead, it bound her nature. Kept her from killing. It wasn’t until Jaxon broke her open that she found herself.

I have a habit of collecting young Hunters—like Jaxon, when he first came up in the world, and now Charlotte, and our mutual friend Sawyer, currently stalking the balmy streets of Pensacola, Florida. Last year, I told Charlotte I wanted to find the names of her parents. Herbirthparents. Because at least one of them has to be a Hunter like her and me and the rest of us. I’m finally getting around to it.

As it turns out, she was adopted through the Church of the Well. And, lucky for me, their main cell is up here in West Texas, so close to my own personal hunting grounds. Another convenient fact? I used to be a preacher myself, and I know exactly what to do and what to say to endear myself to someone like the Reverand Sterling Gunner, former televangelist and current High and Holy Prophet of the Church of the Well, whose gated compound is just a forty-five-minute drive north of the ranch house where I currently sit.

All I need to do is talk my way into the compound, find Charlotte’s adoption records, and get out. Once I have the names, Charlotte can find out where she came from, and I can get back to hunting the way I prefer.

I stand up and pace around, rolling my plan through my head. The girl at the river has almost certainly planted those first few seeds of fear and panic. I’ll let them marinate for a day, even though I’m itching to get this over with. I’m not terribly keen on the idea of going back to my old preacher persona,truth be told. All this nonsense with Charlotte has me thinking about my own youth, when I was a completely different person.

I grew up the illegitimate son of a Catholic priest in Mexican Texas with a murderess for a mother—a murderess who strangled me at twelve years old so she could put me in the ground and make sure I came back out like her. The boogeyman. El Coco.

A Hunter.

My father being a human priest always made me interested in human religions, which was why, when I was older, I went traveling across northern Mexico and the newly-formed Republic of Texas as an itinerant preacher, spreading the word of a god that hates me so I had a way to do the things my body needs to do. I’d go into frontier settlements and spread the Good Word for a few days. Earn their trust.

Then I’d slaughter them and slip off into the darkness like the wind.

I stop by my window and push the curtain aside. There’s not much of a view: just the flatlands around the house, my dusty old car, the dirt road winding up to my property.

A tail thumps my leg; I look down to see Max staring up at me, his long pink tongue lolling out of his grinning mouth. I’ve always kept a dog, ever since I left my mother’s side and struck out on my own. What’s a hunter without a hound dog, after all? His sister Roxi is around here somewhere, too. She’s the really vicious one.

I reach down and scratch his head. “I think you’ll be good at doing it this way,” I tell him. “You always liked being friendly, huh? I’ll need that.”

Max barks, his ears perked up.

“I just hope your sister can behave herself.” I turn my gaze back to the window, thinking through my plans. Give them a day for the initial shock. Keep an eye on the news, not that I expect to see much. The Church of the Well keeps tothemselves, from what I’ve seen. Living off the grid and all that. But if someone does report something, I need to know.

Then I’ll drive up to the gate with my two dogs and ask them for a bit of Christ’s grace. An itinerant preacher, in this day and age? They’ll eat it up, I think. I hope so. Otherwise, I might have to kill my way in, which I’m not too keen to do.

I want to do this cleanly. Invisibly. And then I want to move on with my life.

Something snags in my thoughts, though. The blonde at the river. Her lilac scent and her lovely, symphonic scream.

I’ll get to see her again, won’t I?

The thought sets a fire in me—one I haven’t felt for a long, long time.

CHAPTER THREE

MERCY

Iknock lightly on the door to Reverend Gunner’s office. Male voices drift out, low and serious, but I don’t hear permission to come inside.

“He’s meeting with someone.”

Mrs. Harrison startles me, and I jolt a little, the tray with Reverend Gunner’s coffee jostling. She’s his receptionist, an older woman who’s followed him since his days as a televangelist, before God the Father appeared to him for the first time. She wasn’t at her desk when I came up to the office to bring him his coffee like I always do, at 10:30 AM on the dot.

“Oh,” I say. “He didn’t mention?—”

“The guest just arrived.” She settles down behind her desk, smoothing her dark skirt. We’re all wearing dark colors today, of course. For Raul.

Images from yesterday morning flash through my thoughts. The cold river. Raul’s frozen, mist-covered eyes. The coffee tray wobbles again, and I take a deep breath to steady myself.

“—traveling preacher,” she says. “Like Jesus himself.”

“What?” I’m not sure what to do. Reverend Gunner gets upset when his coffee is late. He also gets upset if I interrupthis meetings. And he’s already furious with me for going down to the river without permission.

“That’s who’s in there,” Mrs. Harrison says. “A traveling preacher named Ambrose Echeverría.”

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