The Dark-Hunters (109 page)

Vane smacked his brother on the back of the head. “Next time I’m leaving you home.”

“Hey, that hurt,” Fang said, rubbing his head.

“Yes, but not as much as this will.” The disembodied voice came out of nowhere.

Talon heard something whirling through the air. He moved his head sharply to the left to avoid its trajectory and caught it as it started past his shoulder.

Arching a brow at the huge medieval throwing ax he held, he passed it over to Vane.

Vane curled his lip. The Katagari looked less than amused. “Hey dickhead, you should know something.” Vane tested the edge of the blade with his thumb. “You attack my brother, you really piss me off.”

Vane tossed the ax back at the one who’d thrown it.

Talon heard a groan an instant before searchlights pierced the darkness.

Talon and Ash hissed in pain, ducked low, and shielded their eyes.

In the next second, something crackled and the lights went out.

Ash tossed a lightning bolt into a corner where it must have hit its mark, since Talon heard someone shriek. The odor of burning flesh wafted through the room.

Then, Daimons came out of the darkness, attacking. Talon caught the first one to reach him, and flipped him to the floor. He toed the release for the blade in his boot, but before he could use it to kill the Daimon, another one caught him about the waist and shoved him back.

“Hot damn, Daimon food,” Fang said with a laugh. “Hey Vane, you want the white meat or dark?”

Vane caught one of the Daimons in the chest with a knife, right in the heart. The Daimon disintegrated. He laughed at his brother who was slugging it out with another Daimon. “How about I grab one leg, you grab the other and we make a wish and pull?”

Talon rolled his eyes at them, then he spun around and used the toe of his boot to finish off the Daimon who had grabbed him.

He went after the first Daimon, who was making his way toward Fang’s back. Talon caught him just before he reached the Katagari.

The Daimon turned on him with a hiss, and tried to stab him. Talon turned his wrist under and snapped the knife out of his hand.

“Bad move, inkblot,” Talon said, slugging the vampire. The demon staggered back. Talon used the knife to finish him off. The Daimon disintegrated as the stolen souls ran free of his body and drifted up toward the ceiling.

Something out of the corner of his eye caught Talon’s attention. He turned his head to see Ash being mobbed by a group of Daimons.

Ash was fighting them off with his staff, but there were so many of them attacking that it was like trying to brush ants off while standing in the middle of an anthill.

Talon went to help.

Where had all the Daimons come from?

They usually congregated in New Orleans this time of year, but damn … it looked like half their world population was here in this room.

Working together, Talon, the Katagaria, and Ash finished them off.

“Thanks,” Ash said as the last one disintegrated.

Talon nodded and folded up his srad into a single dagger, then returned it to his boot.

“Well,” Fang said, mimicking a thick Southern drawl. “I have to say it’s mighty nice of them Daimons to clean up after themselves when you kill them. It’s much better than slaying an Arcadian.” He held his hands up to them. “Look, Ma, no mess.”

“Does Fang have an off switch?” Talon asked Vane.

Looking a bit apologetic, Vane shook his head no.

But Talon was no longer paying attention to them.

He had far more important things to focus on. “We have to find Sunshine,” he said, heading for the stairs.

“Wait,” Ash called. “You have no idea what’s up there.”

Talon didn’t slow at all. “And I won’t know until I get there.”

With no thought except to save her, Talon followed the thumping noise to a door at the far end of the upper hallway. By the time he reached it, Vane, Fang, and Ash had caught up to him.

Talon flung open the door, ready for battle.

Instead of another group of Daimons, what they found was Sunshine tied on a bed in a room that was lit by a small lantern. Moaning, she was writhing and twisting as if she were on fire.

Terrified something was wrong with her, Talon rushed to her side while Vane and Fang searched the room for more Daimons.

What had they done to her?

If they had touched or harmed her, he would hunt them down and tear them to pieces.

As soon as Talon released her from the bed she latched onto him with a viselike grip.

“Hi, baby,” she breathed throatily, rubbing herself against him as she ran her hands through his hair and over his body. “I’ve been thinking about you, wanting you to come to me.”

Oblivious to the others in the room, she kissed him feverishly and started trying to pull his clothes off. For a full minute, Talon was too stunned to move.

Then his hormones surged, wanting her as much as she wanted him.

She pushed him back on the bed, climbing up his body as if she were ready to do him on the spot.

His body instantly on fire, Talon had never seen anything like it. He had to literally struggle to keep his clothes on. Not that he would have objected had they been alone. But there was no way he was going to perform before an audience.

Acheron watched her, his eyes haunted.

There was something about Acheron’s expression that reminded Talon of someone reliving a bad nightmare.

“Sunshine?” Talon said, trying to inspect her for damage. “Are you okay?”

“Umm-hmm,” Sunshine groaned as she nibbled her way down his chin to his neck. His body was instantly hot and hard for her.

“C’mon, baby,” she breathed in his ear. “I need you. Right now.”

“Hey, Vane,” Fang said. “I didn’t know human females could go into heat, did you?”

Vane gave his brother a droll look.

It didn’t curb Fang in the least. “You think she’ll need a stand-in after she wears out Talon, like a Katagari female would? I don’t normally do humans, but for a piece of that I might be tempted.”

Talon saw red.

Vane clapped his hand over his brother’s mouth and pulled him back. “Fang, I think you better stop or Talon might turn you into a wolf kabob.”

Ash shook his head as if forcing himself to wake up from a trance. He pulled Sunshine back, away from Talon. Sunshine fought and hissed like a wildcat as she struggled for her release. Ash whispered something in a language Talon couldn’t understand and Sunshine immediately went limp in his arms.

“What did you do to her?” Talon asked angrily.

“Nothing dangerous.” He carefully placed Sunshine back in Talon’s lap. “It’s a small sleeping spell to keep her calm and let you get her home safely.”

Ash lifted Sunshine’s hand and sniffed her skin.

Talon had already caught a whiff of the strange spicy orange scent that seemed to permeate Sunshine’s body.

Ash turned to Vane and Fang. “Would you guys mind waiting for us downstairs?”

Vane inclined his head. “We’ll do another sweep of the building to make sure there aren’t any more Daimons hiding out.”

He led his brother from the room.

Talon cradled Sunshine against his chest, grateful to have her again, but concerned over what had been done to her. He had also noticed how strangely Ash was behaving; the man was much weirder than normal. “What’s wrong with her?”

Ash let out a long, tired breath. “She’s on a drug called
Eycharistisi.”
At Talon’s frown, he defined the unfamiliar word. “Pleasure.”

“Come again?”

“It’s a very potent aphrodisiac. It floods the body with endorphins and destroys any and all inhibitions. One hit and all the user can think about is finding someone to stimulate them to orgasm.”

Rage descended as Talon thought about why someone would give her such a thing. “You think Camulus had sex with her?”

“No, I think someone else did it as a message to me and a warning to you.”

“How so?”

Ash’s cheeks were mottled with red—something that only happened when the man became truly angry. In fifteen hundred years, Talon had only seen Ash’s skin mottled three times.

“Pleasure was the drug du jour in Atlantis and hasn’t been produced since the entire continent sank to the bottom of the Aegean.”

A bad feeling settled in Talon’s gut. This wasn’t just about Sunshine and him.

He narrowed his eyes on Acheron. “What’s going on, T-Rex? First someone is messing with me who looks like you but isn’t you. And now someone has access to a drug that vanished eleven thousand years ago along with your homeland, and he’s fed it to Sunshine who was kidnapped by Camulus. What’s the deal?”

“Offhand, I would say Camulus has teamed up with someone else.”

“Who?”

As expected, Acheron didn’t answer. “I need you to stay out of this.”

“It’s rather hard for me to stay out of it when this person keeps dragging me into it. And I won’t stay out of it so long as Sunshine is threatened.”

“You’ll do as I tell you, Talon.”

“I’m not your boy, Ash. You better take another tone with me. Quick.”

Ash’s cheeks turned even redder. “Are you questioning my authority?”

“No, I’m questioning your judgment. I want you to come clean with me about who and what we’re dealing with and why this man gave Sunshine this drug.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation, Celt. All you need to know is that I have an old enemy pretending to be me.”

“Why?”

“Well, it obviously isn’t to be nice to me and win over my friends, now is it?”

Talon growled at Acheron’s inability to tell anyone jack about his past. Why was the man so damn secretive?

“Is he a shapeshifter or a demigod?”

“Last I checked, he was human.”

“Then why does he look like you? Is he a relative?”

“I’m not going to play Twenty Questions with you, Talon. He’s not your concern. He’s mine.”

“Will you at least explain to me how in the future I can tell you two apart?”

Acheron removed his sunglasses. “Our eyes. I’m the only human ever born with eyes like these. He won’t have them and he won’t remove his sunglasses for fear of revealing himself.”

“Why is this guy after you?”

“He wants me dead.”

“Why?”

Acheron stepped away from him. “Your orders are simple. Take her back to the swamp. I don’t know how much of the drug they gave her, but I’m sure she’ll still be feeling it when she wakes up. Trust me, when she does, she’s going to put a really big smile on your face.”

“Trust you,” Talon repeated. “Funny how you keep saying that when you never trust anyone with even the most basic facts about yourself. Why is that, Ash?”

As expected, Ash didn’t answer. And in that instant, Talon realized how Sunshine must feel when dealing with him.

It was a wonder she tolerated him at all.

“Hey Ash,” Vane called from downstairs. “There’s something down here you need to see.”

Talon picked Sunshine up and carried her downstairs. Ash followed behind them.

Vane and Fang were in a small room off the main one. On the far wall someone had painted an eerie Greek symbol of three women and a flock of doves. Three notes were taped to it—one above each woman’s head.

Talon saw that one was for him, one for Sunshine, and one for Ash.

Crossing the room, Acheron pulled the letters down, opened the one addressed to Talon and read it out loud. “‘You didn’t listen to me, Celt. I warned you to keep her in your swamp where she would be safe.

“‘I’ll bet it’s now tearing you up that you don’t know when, where, and how I’m going to kill her. But rest assured, I
am
going to kill her.’”

He opened Sunshine’s next and read it out loud as well. “‘Talon, are you reading Sunshine’s letters? What? Don’t you trust your girlfriend?

“‘Don’t worry. She hasn’t been unfaithful to you. At least not yet, though it was hard. We had to tie her down to keep her from screwing every one of us.’”

Talon bellowed with rage. “So help me, I’m going to find that son of a bitch and rip his heart out.”

Furious, Ash opened the last one, but this time he didn’t read it out loud.

The note was addressed to him. The handwriting was different.

I know you, little brother. I know all you’ve done. I know how you live.

Most of all, I know the lies you tell yourself so that you can sleep.

Tell me, what would your Dark-Hunters think of you if they ever learned the truth about you?

Keep them out of my way or I’ll see them all dead.

And you I’ll be seeing on Mardi Gras.

Ash balled the note up in his fist and disintegrated it with his thoughts. Impotent rage rushed through him, setting fire to his blood. If Styxx wanted a war, then he’d better gather a whole lot more Daimons.

Styxx had no idea what he was playing against.

“What did that one say?” Talon asked.

“Nothing. Take Sunshine to your place and keep her there until the drug wears off, then call me.” Ash rubbed his eyes as the Katagaria led them from the building.

Once outside, Talon placed Sunshine in the car while the others stood nearby.

Vane had his arms folded over his chest as he looked at Ash. “So, Ash, where does all this leave you?”

“Basically screwed. In the next twenty-four hours I have to find a way to get Zarek out of here before the cops find him, and unless I miss my guess, the next act of my nemesis will be to tell Kyrian and Julian who their new neighbor is.”

Talon caught Acheron’s gaze. “He wants your attention scattered and unfocused.”

Ash nodded. “Yeah, and he’s doing a really good job at it.”

An idea occurred to Talon. “You know, I think we’ve all been forgetting something.”

“And that is?”

Talon indicated the Katagaria to remind Acheron that the wolf patria wasn’t the only group of Were-Hunters in town. “That your pal doesn’t know about Sanctuary. I think we need to go put the bear clan on standby. I’m sure Papa Peltier and the boys would be more than happy to lend us a hand on Mardi Gras. They owe me a few favors, and if the Daimons come out like they did tonight, we’ll be needing all the help we can get.”