Night Hunter

by Cathy McDavid

  It was what the Dark Ancients wanted.

  He swooped down onto the ledge, landing to stand directly in front of her. Looming over her, he advanced.

  The human woman, fully alert now, looked up at him and released a startled shriek. She dropped the wineglass and scrambled backward, curling into a tight ball.

  "Leave me alone," she screamed.

  Only it wasn't a scream, and her mouth didn't move. Cadamus heard her voice inside his head as clearly as if she'd spoken out loud. Their psychic connection was complete.

  "Quiet," he commanded.

  "Go away!" Wild with fear, she pressed her back into the chaise and covered her face with her hands.

  As if that would make him go away.

  Cadamus bent and sniffed her hair, her ear, her neck. "You are ripe for fertilization," he said.

  The human woman screamed.

  Growling, he grabbed her arm and yanked her from the chaise. He was not one to question the Dark Ancients, but he couldn't help wondering if this sniveling, pitiful human female was worthy of bearing his offspring.

  She is the one, the Dark Ancients whispered. There can be no other.

  So be it.

  Cadamus shoved open the door and carried the now-limp human woman into her dwelling. She made no protest, perhaps resigned to her fate. This mating was necessary but would hold no pleasure for either of them.

  The wall inside her dwelling was covered with awards. There were also photographs of her and others. Many of the photographs included the Huntsman. Cadamus gleaned from her mind that she'd gathered the tributes to her many accomplishments and put them on display for all who entered her dwelling to see.

  Egotistical, and something Cadamus might do in her place. Perhaps this human woman wasn't such a bad choice for a mate after all, he thought and took her right there beneath the shrine she'd constructed to herself.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Nick stared down the length of the aisle, marveling at how it was he could come once a week to the grocery store and not notice there were so many varieties of cereal. He'd always been a bacon-and-eggs man himself.

  "I like this kind." Stevie plucked a box off the lower shelf and placed it in the cart.

  Nick picked the box up, examining the back, sides, and front. Tony the Tiger sat astride a purple horse and sported an absurd, openmouthed grin. "It doesn't look very healthy."

  "It tastes good."

  He started to tell her that taste wasn't as important as nutrition but bit back his words. One trip to the grocery store with Stevie and suddenly he was Mr. Healthy? What was with that?

  "My mom used to buy that kind for me."

  His niece-at least that's what the temporary guardianship papers Charlie had acquired for them

  yesterday identified her to be-gazed up at him with sorrowful eyes so brown they were almost black. "Okay." Nick tossed the cereal back into the cart.

  "I guess a few empty calories won't hurt you." She gave him a tiny, sad smile. "Thanks." "What's next on the list?"

  "Ice cream?" Her smile, while still sad, turned hopeful.

  Stevie'd had good and bad days since her mother's death nearly five days ago. This was apparently one of her bad days. Gillian told him to be patient with his new charge, that it would take months, possibly years, for her to get over the trauma.

  He wasn't sure anyone ever really recovered from losing a parent. He hadn't. Neither had Gillian.

  Ice cream, while not a cure, might help.

  They'd stopped first at a discount department store to buy Stevie some new clothes and other necessities before heading to the grocery store. Nick didn't want to risk anyone recognizing her, so they'd driven fifteen miles to another part of town.

  "How soon until we move?" Stevie walked beside Nick, her hand on the cart.

  "I'll start looking at houses soon." With school out, they had all summer to get situated. "Can I come, too?"

  "Of course."

  Nick was postponing house hunting until after the final battle. Until then, he couldn't bring himself to move forward with his life. He and Gillian ventured out every night, searching for Cadamus's sanctuary, expecting him to appear at any moment and challenge Nick.

  So far, they'd found no sign of the alpha male. Even the string of unexplained murders had apparently come to an end.

  Gillian was convinced that with the elimination of all three females, Cadamus had either perished or gone into hiding and was soon to perish.' He'd been injured, perhaps unable to hunt. What purpose would there be in fighting Nick when his species was doomed to extinction?

  Nick and Charlie believed no such thing. For one, Cadamus wouldn't give up so easily. He was born and bred to fight. The final battle was his destiny as much as Nick's.

  For another, the Ancients hadn't spoken to Nick. Not since the night Cadamus attacked them and tried to fly off with Gillian. If the final battle were unnecessary, the Ancients would have told Nick. And the perpetual agitation gnawing at his belly would go away.

  No. Cadamus was up to something. Nick just had to find out what it was before Cadamus had the chance to implement his plan.

  When the hell would this infernal waiting come to an end? Nick gripped the handle of the shopping cart so tight his fingers cramped. He didn't think he could take much more.

  "Is Gillian going to move in with us?" Stevie asked.

  Nick strived to relax and speak normally. There was no cause to alarm Stevie, not when she was struggling with her own problems. "Would you mind if she did?"

  "No. She's really nice. I like her."

  "She likes you, too."

  "What about Uncle Charlie?"

  "Uncle Charlie will probably stay right where he is for as long as he can. He enjoys his independence."

  Nick pulled items off the shelves as they walked by and flung them into the cart, no longer paying attention to nutrition or price or anything else.

  "But he's old."

  "Not so old he can't get around on his own. By motorcycle, in fact."

  "Will he still babysit me?"

  "Every chance he gets."

  "And take me for motorcycle rides?" "Not on your life."

  Kids. Did they ever run out of questions?

  Nick's cell phone rang. He assumed it was Gillian and didn't check the caller ID. She'd gone to Florence Prison to visit her father again and was probably on her way home.

  He put the phone to his ear and said in a sexy voice, "Hello there."

  "Hello to you, too, kitten."

  "Max!" Nick cleared his throat.

  His coworker laughed. "Just what kind of fishing are you doing there in Mexico?"

  "I'll send you a postcard so you can see for yourself."

  "I can't believe I got you. I figured your cell phone wouldn't reach across the border and I was just going to leave a voice mail message."

  "I bought a booster antenna before I left," Nick lied. "What's up?" Max wouldn't have called him while he was on vacation unless it were important.

  "I know it's pretty unlikely, but we were wondering. .." Max's tone went from amused to serious. "Have you heard from Celeste at all?"

  "No, why?"

  "She didn't show up for work yesterday orr today.

  No one's been able to get hold of her and if she's home, she's not answering her door."

  "Huh. You're kidding. That's not like her." "No, it's not."

  "Did you check with her family in Ohio?" Nick was pretty sure Celeste didn't have any local friends. "This morning, and nada. Her personal assistant hasn't heard from her since Tuesday, and said she missed a manicure appointment yesterday, which, as you well know, is unheard of.

  "Bradley's worried," Max went on. "I don't blame him."

  "He even had me call the local hospitals. Said if you hadn't heard from her, I'm to contact the police."

  "I think you should."

  Celeste rarely missed work and when she did, she called in without fail.

  "Sorry to cut into your vacation
," Max said.

  "How's it going?"

  "Great." Nick winked at Stevie, who was watching him. "I'm having the time of my life."

  "Excellent. Well, we'll see you when you get back.

  Everyone here says hi."

  "Keep me posted on Celeste." "I'll call you if we hear anything." "And if you don't."

  "Is something wrong?" Stevie asked when Nick disconnected from Max.

  "Yeah." The agitation gnawing at him increased inintensity. Nick pressed a hand to his middle and

  rubbed. "I think one of my friends might be in trouble." "Bad trouble?"

  "Maybe. She's been missing since Tuesday."

  The same day Nick and Gillian destroyed the last female creature and Gillian narrowly escaped Cadamus's clutches.

  Coincidence?

  Instinct told him there were no real coincidences, not where Cadamus was concerned.

  Gillian stood at Nick's dining table, loading a video camera into her oversized fanny pack. She tucked the camera in beside a half-dozen plastic bags and a pair of latex gloves. There was little space remaining for the digital camera she also planned on taking with her.

  "What are you doing?" Nick eyed her fanny pack and the digital camera in her hand. He wasn't smiling.

  "Getting ready to go out tonight," she answered, her tone intentionally light. They were leaving in a few minutes on their nightly search for Cadamus's sanctuary. Nick had just finished putting Stevie to bed. Charlie was in the living room, busy running some new program on his laptop.

  "Don't play games," Nick said. "You know what I'm talking about."

  She didn't bristle at his borderline surly tone. Nick had been on edge for days. Learning about Celeste's mysterious absence that afternoon had only increased his edginess. While not exactly friends, they'd worked together for three years. Gillian could understand his worry.

  "I thought if we found Cadamus's sanctuary tonight, I could take some pictures." She braced herself for his reaction.

  "Why? By tomorrow the Ancients will have dissolved them."

  "Not pictures of Cadamus. His sanctuary. When we find it. Which we will." She refused to believe differently. "There's bound to be some evidence of him. I intend to photograph it and/or collect any samples. Hopefully, organic material that can be tested."

  The painful burning in the back of her throat took her by surprise. She hadn't cried when her father broke his news to her earlier today. Nor had she cried on the drive home from Florence. Why now?

  "I thought you'd given up searching for proof of the creatures' existence."

  "No, you assumed I gave it up just because I haven't mentioned it lately."

  Nick shook his head. "This isn't what we agreed to."

  "Agreements can be renegotiated."

  "You can't, Gillian. Revealing the existence of the creatures will shift the balance of pow-"

  "It won't!" She reined in her soaring emotions before continuing in a calmer voice. "The female creatures are dead. Cadamus will die soon if he hasn't already. What harm can revealing their existence do now except solve a hundred unexplained murders and give grieving families and friends closure?"

  And maybe free one man from prison so that he could live the rest of his life, however short that may or may not be, at home with his daughter.

  Nick moved closer, bracing his hand on the back of a chair and blocking her escape. "Cadamus isn't dead."

  She refused to be intimated. Squaring her shoulders, she said, "You can't be sure."

  "I'm absolutely sure."

  "Have the Ancients told you he's alive?"

  "They haven't told me he's not. And they would."

  "Well." Gillian shoved the digital camera into her fanny pack, her movements clumsy but defiant. "If I'm not supposed to take pictures or collect evidence, the Ancients will stop me. Won't they?" "Yes."

  She hadn't been serious. Nick was.

  "So, my taking the camera won't hurt anything."

  She swallowed a sob before it could escape.

  "What's really wrong?" Some of the bite left his voice. "Why the sudden change?"

  "Nothing's wrong. There is no change."

  He touched her then, resting his hand on hers. Gillian's resolve to be strong and brave and in charge of her emotions went by the wayside, and she started to weep.

  "Come on, sweetheart." He folded her into his arms and stroked her hair. "Tell me what's bothering you."

  She was such a wimp. Even as she cursed her susceptibility to Nick, she poured her heart out to him.

  "The doctors found two more lumps in my father's back. The cancer's returned."

  "Do they know that for sure?"

  If Nick were still angry at her, if he were still going crazy with waiting for Cadamus to appear, he hid all trace of it. His actions were strictly those of a lover and friend who was genuinely concerned about her and her father.

  "No. He's scheduled for biopsy surgery early Friday morning."

  "You should be there with him. I'll come, too." "You don't have to."

  He tipped her chin up and waited for her to meet his gaze. "I want to."

  "Thank you." His support meant a lot to her. She withdrew from his embrace, more composed than she'd been a minute ago. "But I'm still taking the cameras with me." Not waiting for any potential backlash, she forged ahead. "I have to, Nick. My father's next parole hearing is six weeks away. If he winds up having a relapse of the cancer, I'm going to do everything in my power to get him released from prison. Everything. Including obtaining evidence of the creatures. The extinct creatures," she reiterated.

  "There might be another way."

  "What?"

  "I know someone who can maybe help."

  Though he wasn't one to string people along, she didn't totally trust him when it came to her father. "What kind of someone?"

  "Let me make a :phone call or two. Then we'll talk." He pushed an errant lock of hair from her face. "In the meantime, take your cameras and your plastic bags. I won't try to stop you."

  "You won't?"

  "No."

  She got it then. "Because you think I'm wasting my time. The Ancients will destroy my film or cement my feet to the pavement."

  "Something like that."

  His assurance irked her. How could he be so sweet one minute and a first-class jerk the next?

  She jammed the digital camera in the fanny pack and zipped it closed, forcing the zipper over the last two lumpy inches.

  "Then you won't mind if I take my chances."

  Not waiting for his answer, she trudged out of the kitchen, attaching her fanny pack to her waist as she went. An unexpected thought halted her in her tracks.

  By "something like that" was Nick referring to him losing the final battle?

  The cemetery was no less creepy with Nick walking beside her than it had been the night Gillian followed him from his apartment three weeks ago. More so, since she was inside the cemetery's fence and not just walking along beside it.

  Granite headstones shone in the dark like silver beacons, reflecting the light from the nearby municipal buildings. Gillian tried not to read any of the epitaphs. She didn't want to know who was buried here or when they died.

  "Where are you going?" she hollered to Nick.

  He'd veered from the sidewalk to cut across the neatly manicured lawn. Gillian was loathe to follow him.

  "The gardener's house."

  Great. The place where Cadamus had murdered the elderly woman. "Why?"

  "I have an idea." He turned around, finally realizing she wasn't following him, and motioned to her. "Come on."

  Traipsing across the graves of dead people was not on her list of top ten things she most wanted to do. Gillian's skin crawled, and she rubbed her arms to ward off the sensation.

  "How's the gardener's house going to help us find Cadamus's sanctuary?" she asked.

  "Watch and learn."

  They'd checked out all the buildings on every side of the cemetery the last four nights, with n
othing to show for their efforts. When she'd broached the subject with Nick last night and suggested they expand their search, like, say, closer to the Hanson Building a few blocks over, he shot her down without so much as an I'll-think-about-it. According to him, they'd missed something their first go-around.

  Whatever he had in mind for the gardener's house must be their second go-around.

  "What's the matter?" He walked back toward her, his arm outstretched. "Scared?"

  "No."

  "This can't be any worse than crawling through the air ducts at Iglisia de San Pedro."

  There were no graves filled with dead people at the church.

  "I'll be right here the whole time." He clasped her hand firmly in his.

  Gillian drew in a long breath. She knew her dislike-no, make that fear-of cemeteries was a holdover from her mother's funeral. So what? Identifying the cause of her problem didn't lessen her case of the willies one smidgeon.

  Nick's fingers wrapped tightly around hers, however, did help. A fraction. It also helped that they walked in between the graves and not over them.

  Soon, though not soon enough for Gillian, they left the headstones behind and made their way to the gardener's house, which was in an isolated corner of the cemetery.

  At the door of the small building, Nick let go of her hand. She instinctively crowded in close to him, not to watch but to take comfort from his nearness. He pulled a small pick from his back pocket and set to work on the padlock securing the door.

  "Let me guess," Gillian said. "Charlie taught you the art of breaking and entering, too."

  "No. This is one skill I acquired myself."

  "On the streets when you were growing up?"

  "More like online." With a click, the padlock sprang, and Nick pushed open the door. "What are we doing in here?"

  "Looking for a ladder. I need it to get on the roof." "Why?"

  "Cadamus hatched from under that tree over there. After abducting the old woman, he came here. To the roof. From there, he flew off and found his sanctuary. I'm thinking, his sanctuary is someplace he could see from this roof."

  "Let me get this straight. You think my idea that his sanctuary isn't right next to the cemetery is a good one."