He just stared at me, then tapped the floor of the airboat twice. I tried to remember all the stuff that the device could do, and combined with the tapped paw, I asked if he wanted our GPS. When he looked interested, I pulled up our current location. It took a few questions and more than a few interpretative decisions on my part, but eventually I pulled up a satellite map of our location.
Not far from us, according to the sat map, was a small island with a fancy house on stilts. Except for a narrow beach and a boat dock, the island was surrounded by water like a moat, with a narrow ring of an islet circling protectively outside the moat. The house could be reached by boat or helo; both methods would give advance notice of our arrival. Parachute landing might go unnoticed. Or wings, if I wanted to go in as a bird and then change back to human—to fight weaponless and naked. Not.
I studied the sat photos. The water between the island and the circling islet was gated on two sides, with only the one area of the island open to the surrounding water, where we could manage a frontal attack. “Now, why would an escaped con head to a house in the middle of nowhere? Unless he was killing two birds with one stone?” I hadn’t really studied the file sent to me by Nadine. I opened and skimmed it again, finally finding a summary of John-Roy Wayne’s arrest history. The guy had been going for a world record in violence.
The info from my partners was more helpful. It contained a list of people who might assist John-Roy, and another list of people he might want to kill just for funsies. “Go, Alex,” I said to myself. “You get pizza for all this.” I thought about the info and about the house not far ahead, on stilts.
“Sarge? Do you know who lives in that well-secured house?” He nodded, his eyes suddenly tight on me. It was unnerving to be looked at with such intensity by any predator, but a werewolf was in a category by himself. I stifled my shudder and assured myself it was only the cold and the damp that lent me a chill. I was lying, but it made me feel better. I said, “If I read a list of names, can you tell me if any of them live here?”
Sarge nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving me. I started with the people John-Roy might want to kill. The wolf made no reaction to any of the names, but when I started on the list of people John-Roy would like to hang with, I got a response. Elvis Clyde McPhatter Lamont. I texted the name to Alex, along with the location of the island house. Moments later, Eli texted back, Kid says Elvis is bad news. Get close. Pick landing site. Keep cell on. I drop in 1900. Eli had already figured out he needed to parachute. He was close. Go, Rangers!
Alex sent me an arrest photograph of Elvis Lamont and a list of his priors, which included kidnapping and running a forced sex-slave ring. The tat on his neck would make him easy to recognize. It was an oversized penis. I shared all this with Sarge, showing him the sat maps, and finished with, “My partner will be here at seven o’clock. We need to be on that island by then. He’ll use my cell as a homing beacon to jump in.
“It’s gonna be miserable by seven,” I continued. “I suggest we move close to the island, and then hunker. Which sounds like a cold winter swim.” Sarge tilted his head, whuffed with laughter, and tugged on the seat harness. When I released him, Sarge picked up a paddle in his teeth and dropped it at my feet, then leaped over the seats to the storage chest at the base of the propeller cage. Inside was an inflatable two-person raft.
“Oh,” I said. “Soooo much better.” We’d be crowded, but we wouldn’t have to swim. PP, who had closed her eyes for a nap, whuffed at me. I texted our plan to the guys and spread open the tiny raft, plugged it into the airboat’s battery, and hit the AUTOINFLATE button. I had paddled an inflatable raft before, and in short order, we were on board, though sitting low in the water with so many bodies. It took a bit of practice to remember how to navigate with a single paddle, but I managed, and we moved through the sluggish mist and the remains of the storm.
Water plinked onto water between drenchings—when water drummed onto water. It was cold and miserable. And it was helpful. No one would see us unless they had low-light or infrared-light devices, and even then they wouldn’t be able to tell what the odd-shaped bundle was. But it was slow going, and even with my Beast to warm me, it was cold.
Rain running down my neck worsened my chill. Rain wasn’t good for riding leathers, unless I got a chance to dry and clean my jacket right away, and that wasn’t happening. Stupid thoughts to keep the ones that mattered at bay. The island, isolated, secure, was a perfect location to break in new women to the forced sex trade. The two kidnapped women, already brutalized, were probably going to be sold for cash.
My mother had been raped by two men, the same ones who killed my father. I had evened the score. The heat of vengeance spread through me at the memories, and while I tamped down on them, I also let them warm me. I could use this anger.
• • •
After nearly two hours we got close to the house. The light of day had dulled down to mostly nothing, the sunset smothered by clouds, the water hidden by fog. I wished I had Eli’s cool tech devices to see through the fog if there were people patrolling with guns, but I’d have to go on canine noses and skinwalker senses. The house windows blazed with light, haloing the mist. Something bumped the bottom of the boat. Sarge growled, low and full of menace. “Gators?” I whispered. Sarge’s eyes swept the water around us, but eventually he went silent. And I paddled on. It was too cold for gators. I hoped.
My cell buzzed. I opened the titanium case to see the text. Airborne. Where land?
Hoping I was right, I texted back, 170 ft due N my position. Which, if he timed it perfectly, would put him in back of the house. If he missed, he’d be on the house.
Long minutes later my cell buzzed. The text said, Ten minutes. Hit shore. Take front door. Careful. Gators in water around house.
“Well, that’s just ducky,” I said.
• • •
Eight minutes later, we had maneuvered between slivers of islands, past a dock where three boats had been moored—boats now floating free, thanks to a sharp knife severing the mooring lines, moving slowly into the water of the channel. No one was getting off the island tonight. In the pitch dark, we beached on the one small muddy shore not protected by gators fenced into a moat. Two airboats were moored there. Smoke and voices filtered through the mist, the fog making it hard to tell where they came from. The canines were staring at one airboat and the shore, nostrils flaring. Even in human form, I could smell the prisoners, the kidnapped women. We had the right place. I slipped from the raft and removed the keys from the other airboats and, after a moment’s hesitation, unhooked the gas lines from the motors.
“Sarge?” I whispered. “They might have nighttime vision equipment. They might have guns. Or we could be wrong and our target’s not here.” Sarge snorted, telling me the women were here, and so was John-Roy. “You and PP be careful.”
Sarge grunted and he and PP, still laden with weapons, leaped off the boat and moved into fog-filled shadows. I felt a tingle of magic on my skin that told me Sarge had started to change back into human form. I just hoped he’d brought clothes with him, and grinned at the thought of the war vet attacking naked. It was my only grin of the day, and it faded fast.
• • •
I checked my cell. My time was up. I drew a vamp-killer and a nine mil, the metal dry and warm from contact with my body. Weapons to my sides, the blade held back against my forearm, steel handle in a steady grip, I walked toward the house. For the first time in my career, for the first time since I’d killed my father’s murderers, I was deliberately hunting humans.
My nose was little use in the fog, but I pulled on Beast’s better vision, and the night smoothed out into grays and silvers and greens. The form of a man appeared in front of me, my nose telling me he wasn’t one of mine, though he was facing the house. I walked up to him and bonked him on the head. He fell silently. I searched him quick and came up with a small subgun and a walkie-talkie. T
hey made nice splashes in the water.
I met no one else outside. The house was a two-story mansion on pylons. This close, I could smell people. Humans, lots of them, came and went all the time, but for now, the numbers were few. The night went silent, the voices I had been hearing stopped. I tried the door. I texted Eli: Unlocked.
Instantly I got back Go.
I opened the door and stepped inside, into the shadow of a fake ficus tree. Warmth and sensory overload hit me simultaneously, and I looked around, first for people—none—and then for cameras. None also. Which was smart in a way. If you were doing something illegal, you needed to make sure nothing was filmed or recorded. Of course, if you were under attack, the lack of cameras was stupid.
I took a breath. The air reeked of cigars, expensive liquor, pain, fear, sex, and blood. And young females. Beast slammed into me. Kits! she thought at me. Hurting.
She wanted to run straight for the scent, but I clamped down on her. Stealth, I thought at her. Beast snarled but held still. I stepped to the side and took in the foyer. Cypress-wood floors, rugs, smoking lounge to my right, bar to my left. Large-screen TVs in each room. A game room was ahead, with pool tables, dartboard, comfy chairs. I moved cautiously into it. And found a stage with a brass pole. No people. Stairs going up and the stink of fear coming down.
A moment later, Eli appeared from the shadows at the back of the house, wearing night camo and loaded for war. He was carrying a pistol with a suppressor screwed on the end, legal in Louisiana. He could fire and the sound, while still loud, was unlikely to carry far. He held up three fingers to indicate how many he had taken down outside, then one finger to show how many he had taken down inside. There was no stink of gunfire or blood, suggesting that he had used nonlethal methods, just as I had. I extended one finger, then used it to point up the stairs. I mouthed, Prison.
My partner’s mouth turned down. He mouthed what I thought might have been No mercy, and he moved up the stairs. I followed. I was halfway up when I heard a woman scream.
Eli ducked right, toward the sound, moving fast in a bent-kneed run. I covered him, seeing a wide hallway running left and right, doors along it, and floor-to-ceiling windows at each, two recliners in front of each window. Which was odd. Until I looked in the closest one and saw a man curled up on a large, four-poster bed, facing away from the glass. Asleep. There were chains on the bedposts and bruises on the young man’s back.
Movement caught my eye and a human-shaped Sarge appeared, coming from the end of the hallway. He carried a shotgun and wore black cotton pants and a T-shirt, his hairy feet bare. PP trotted by his side. There was blood on her muzzle. Sarge began to check all the rooms on the far end of the hall, the scent of his anger strong.
Satisfied that he had my back, I slipped from room to room up to Eli. The recliners in front of the window on the end room both held incapacitated bodies, their heads at odd angles. Not breathing. Very dead. One of them was John-Roy’s cell pal. The other I didn’t know. Sarge had been at work.
Inside the room were two men and two women. The show the men had been watching was ugly. Real ugly. Eli opened the door and said softly, “John-Roy.” When the man rose, a gun in his meaty hand, the barrel moving toward the door, Eli fired, the sound not much louder than a dictionary dropped flat from shoulder height. John-Roy fell, screaming, a hole in his abdomen. Eli’s next two shots hit the back wall; suppressors made hitting a target at any distance problematic. The second man grabbed a woman and backed from the bed, holding her as a shield.
Eli raced inside. Fast as a big-cat, I followed and centered the sight of my nine mil on the standing man’s forehead. I didn’t recognize him except for the tattoo of the penis. This was Elvis Clyde McPhatter Lamont, king of the forced sex trade. He wore gold on his wrists and hanging around his neck, but otherwise he was naked, holding a woman, also naked, bleeding, and bruised. But not broken. She looked enraged, her eyes telling me she was ready for anything. Elvis pulled her to the wall.
On the floor, one hand pressing on his belly wound, John-Roy was looking at me. He yelled, “You!” and turned the gun toward me. TV shows where the bad guy always drops his gun are stupid. In real life, it doesn’t happen all that often. Eli shot him, again in the abdomen, off center. Not a miss, a deliberate target. Eli wanted him alive.
I laughed, the sound a register lower than my human voice. It carried menace, fury, and delight, and it was all Beast. From behind me, PP leaped into the room, straight to the woman still on the bed. The huge dog lay down next to her, protecting. Ignoring the man and his hostage, Eli secured the room.
Behind me, Sarge walked in, the grizzled man taking in everything. He closed the door behind him, the sound soft and final. “Son,” Sarge said to Elvis, “I can’t allow you to get away with this. You let the lady go and I’ll let you die easy. You keep her, and I’ll make sure you die slow.” Which sounded pretty generous to me.
But Elvis disagreed. A door I hadn’t noticed opened behind him and before I could react, he was gone. Sarge leaped across the room, a distance a human couldn’t have covered. Sarge rammed into the door as it closed, splintering wood and revealing a steel core. He bellowed.
I ran out of the room and down the stairs, catching a glimpse of Eli dragging John-Roy by the hair. There was no way off the island tonight, in the fog, except by boat. There hadn’t been a land-based boathouse on the sat map—which could have been sadly out-of-date—but I was trusting that it was up-to-date and that the men had arrived in the boats that had been tied to the docks. I raced that way, out of the house, into the black fog of night. Beast, still close to the front of my mind, guided me, her balance assisting mine, her vision lighting the night world. I let her take over.
Can smell nothing new, no female-prisoner smell, no man-predator stink, she thought.
As I reached shore, the lights in the house went out. All of them. “That’s because we got out in front of him,” I murmured, certain. “We’re between him and his getaway boat.” I dropped to a crouch and faced the house.
He came from my right, the woman silent, stumbling, her breath shaking. I heard her take a breath and start to scream, the faint hiss followed by a thump and the sound of a falling body. The reek of fresh blood was strong on the air. One pair of running footsteps came toward me. He’d hurt her to keep her quiet, and then had to leave her when he’d been too harsh. Which just made my job easier. When he appeared out of the fog, I rose fast. And let him rush onto my blade. It caught him low in the abdomen, and I yanked the blade up, severing everything in its path. Hot blood gushed over my hand, and still I lifted the blade, tilting it to the right so it would miss his aorta and his heart. He went limp, and I let him fall, taking my blade with him.
Around me the heavens opened and a deluge fell. The lights came back on in the house, showing me not much of anything but shadows and a dying man at my feet. Sarge strode up, picked up my prisoner, and flipped the body into his own airboat. PP jumped up beside him, tongue lolling. “Keys,” Sarge demanded.
I tossed them to him and moments later, the airboat vanished into the mist, the powerful prop roaring. Eli came from my left, through the rain, carrying the woman Elvis had dropped. “I need to get her inside, into a safe place. She doesn’t need to wake up with a man near her,” he said. “Call this in. Get medic and the law.”
“Yeah,” I said, trudging back to the hell house. “Sarge took Elvis. What happened to John-Roy?”
“He ran off into the night,” Eli said. “I heard a splash. I think he fell into the moat.”
I thought about that for a moment. A gut-shot man accidently falling into a moat full of gators. Maybe they’d eat him. Maybe he’d drown first. Maybe not. “Good,” I said.
• • •
The rest of the night was chaos. Nadine and a sheriff from the parish to the north vied for jurisdictional control of the scene, and the FBI showed, kicking them both out because of
the human trafficking. Eli and I were allowed to leave at ten the next morning, free to go after long interrogations. Sarge met us at the shore in his airboat. Together we went back to Chauvin. The media circus onshore was unimaginable, but they ignored us, looking like locals with nothing to say, the reporters too busy trying to hire, bribe, or buy a way to the island in the middle of the black water.
• • •
A month later, I got a package in the mail. It was my vamp-killer, smelling of cleansers and oil, the blade freshly honed. There was no note. No explanation. I didn’t need one. The blade was explanation enough.
Off the Grid
Author’s note: This story takes place just before Broken Soul. In it, you’ll meet Nell, who will be getting her own series! The first book, Blood of the Earth, will be published in August 2016.
I’d stayed in Charlotte for two days, overseeing the latest repairs on my bike, Bitsa. She was pretty well trashed, and she’d be a different bike when I got her back, very slightly chopped, with wider wheel fenders, and this time, no teal in the paint job. Jacob—the semiretired Harley restoration mechanic/Zen Harley priest living along the Catawba River, the guy who had created Bitsa in the first place using parts from two busted, rusted bikes I’d found in a junkyard—had shaken his head when I asked when the bike would be ready to ride to New Orleans. Bitsa had been crashed by a being made of light, and the damage was extensive. It sounded weird when I said it like that—a being of light—but my life had gotten pretty weird since I went to work for the Master of the City of New Orleans and the Greater Southeast, Leo Pellissier. Jacob had taken my money but refused to discuss the paint job, saying only that I’d love it. And then he’d plopped me on a loaner bike and shooed me out of his shop as if I were twelve.