bet he could stop the guy without relying on any firepower but his fists.
“You really want to have that talk with your boss and explain why I had to beat the shit out of you when you pulled your gun all because you didn’t like my face?” Joss asked, keeping his voice polite and friendly.
He figured it might be the best approach after all, since he’d already made the guy dislike him on sight.
The bastard curled his lip and lowered his hand. “Like you could. Keep it together.” He paused and then added, “Or maybe you shouldn’t. I’d like to see you go the way of the last one.”
Joss saw it play out through the man’s mind. He didn’t know what bothered him more . . . the spray of blood as his apparent predecessor became gator bait or the way this fucker had enjoyed it.
Fuck him. Joss wanted to beat that smile off his face, but it wasn’t an option right now. Maybe not ever. The job. Focus on the job.
Shifting his attention away, he looked at the gate. “Am I going in or not?”
There was no question of whether he was in the right place.
They waved him in and he followed along behind the three-wheeler that had come up out of the dense, heavy growth of green. Lots of places to hide shit here, he thought.
Lots of places to hide those bodies . . .
A scream rang through his mind on the tail end of that thought.
Nobody else heard the scream. Nobody else heard the woman begging for help.
But he sensed Vaughnne’s discomfort, heard her ragged intake of breath, sensed the disquiet of her mind behind her shields.
You okay?
I’m fine, she assured him, but her mental voice was hard and tight. Shut it down. Dunno if any of these people are sensitives.
Well, she didn’t know that. But he had a pretty good feeling. They weren’t. He would have already picked up on that. Besides, the rampant pain, fear, and death here wouldn’t work very well for anybody who tried to linger in this place, he knew.
There were plenty of psychics, plenty of sensitives who weren’t decent people, plenty who did ugly, awful things, and he knew that, too.
But the ghosts here . . . they’d drive somebody insane. And an insane person wouldn’t last long in this place. Not working for Whitmore. He wanted them without morals, without compassion, but clear minded as hell.
Another ghost sobbed in the back of his mind, broken and desperate, and he edged up another layer to his shields. This place was . . . hell, he realized.
Hell on earth.
Goose bumps danced along his flesh, and even in the sweltering heat, he felt oddly cool. Behind those solid shields, he heard endless, broken sighs. Quiet sobs. And screams . . . broken, tortured wails.
The cries of the dead.
This wasn’t the place Dez had been.
It was worse.
Joss didn’t want to know how many people had died here.
It was going to be an experience trying to work in there, find what he needed to find, without dropping the shields so much that he went stark raving mad. He could cut himself away from the ghosts, and he knew he handled their presence, for the short term, better than Dez did. Not dealing wasn’t good in the long run, but since he didn’t have to have these gifts for the long haul, he wasn’t worried about it.
A shrink would have a field day with him.
Reaching out to those voices, he did what he could to ease them, although he doubted it would do much good. I’ll do what I can, I swear.
He wasn’t Dez . . . he didn’t have her heart, or her compassion. But he’d find a way to help these troubled souls . . . because he was damned good at putting killers away. That’s what the lost wanted. Justice. Peace.
Once he did that, it would be safe and he could step aside. Dez could come in and clean house. He’d take his vacation . . . and find his woman.
* * *
DRU stared at her reflection.
The cocktail dress was ivory silk, and it glowed against her skin. The one-shouldered design did a stunning job of highlighting her figure without making her look completely flat-chested. It had a jeweled clip on her left shoulder, and she suspected the sparklies there were real diamonds. Her monstrous fiancé just wouldn’t go for anything so base as that.