Chapter 7

He sat in the car, watching them through night vision binoculars. His stomach lurched in response to what he’d seen. Her eyes had shifted; she was one of them, no doubt about that now. He knew what he had to do. It was simple really. She had to die and so did the creature. He pulled away quietly in the dark. He kept the headlights off so he wouldn’t attract attention. He knew the creature was distracted with his whore; it wouldn’t notice.

Tony smiled, remembering the triumph he’d had earlier this evening. It had tried to read him, and Tony had blocked it—one of the benefits of his partnership. His new friend had taught him how to put up a mental barrier, a means of self-preservation. Over the years, his family had been working to develop their psychic abilities. This way they could fight their enemy more effectively. Tony had done it. He warded off a mental invasion from it. Keeping that thing out of his mind took a lot of energy. Doing it also gave him a raging migraine. Tony couldn’t maintain the block for long, but he did it. Once he’d been spotted, he immediately focused on keeping him out of his mind. Doing it took so much energy that Tony had to get out of there as soon as he could. He’d almost fainted from the effort, but he’d done it.

He pounded the steering wheel and hooted with excitement. He couldn’t wait to tell his partner about the latest developments. He drove up to his house, thinking about how they had the audacity to sit there in the restaurant as though they were normal and had any right to be there, breathing the same air he did. It infuriated him. All those people in that restaurant, the clueless morons. They had no idea about the evil that lurked right under their noses. He thought about the Logan woman. She was a nice piece of ass, no one would argue that. Too bad she was tainted, evil. He thought about how she’d looked at that animal, and it made him sick. It was perverted, a human woman and that thing. He had to remind himself that she wasn’t really human. Her eyes had mutated. Tony saw it happen, and it confirmed what they’d thought all along. Her humanity was being taken over. She was infected by the animal inside of her, and now she would have to die.

He got so excited thinking about the various ways he could do it. It would definitely be easier to kill her and then let the creature die slowly afterward. He thought about how much pain and suffering her death would bring to the creature. He ran different scenarios over in his mind as a slow smile spread across his face.