by Jory Strong
Mallory rolled her eyes.
Sorcha giggled.
They stepped into the kitchen to find it clean.
Mallory cut Sorcha a look. "Told you so."
She stuck out her tongue.
"Look-it, Mallory," Austin yelled, turning from a counter loaded with cupcakes, a spatula in his hand and cheeks streaked with chocolate.
Mallory freed Hot Dog and went to Austin. Bending down she wrapped her arms around him and delivered a loud, smacking kiss. "Mmmm, chocolate. You're delicious. Maybe I'll just eat you up and keep all your presents for myself."
Austin giggled. "No way."
She smiled against his chocolate-and-summer-field-scented skin. "Yes, way."
"You're silly, Mal."
She gave him another loud, smacking kiss, along with a couple of tongue swipes against baby-soft skin, then straightened, taking in the number of cupcakes. "Just how many people are coming to your party?"
"Everybody!" he said, flinging his arms wide to encompass the entire world from his point of view.
With a tug on Mallory's hair, their mother turned her away from the display of cupcakes. The two of them were the same height, the same body style, but like Austin and Sorcha and Phillip, her mother was blonde and blue-eyed.
"You didn't answer my question, Mallory. Were you telling Sorcha about a new boyfriend?"
"M-o-m." It was a good imitation of one of Sorcha's dragged out and suffering responses.
Her mother placed her cheek against Mallory's. "I want you to be happy. You deserve it. Work is all well and good, but there's more to life than that. I want you to have what I have in Phillip and my three beautiful, wonderful children."
A lump formed in Mallory's throat. Love for this family, and more. She wanted what her mother had too, but it was an impossible dream. It had become one even before she returned from Hell. A Hound's love was a dangerous thing. They were all killers, or killers in training.
She put an arm around her mother's waist, hugging her. "I'm good, Mom. I like my life the way it is."
If the others had been present, they would have scented the lie. She could nearly smell it herself, rising off her skin like the stink of carrion.
The doorbell rang, sending Hot Dog and Austin both racing from the kitchen. Pandemonium arrived in a children-filled hoard.
And then Phillip arrived. He blistered Mallory from the family room doorway.
Her mother intercepted him within steps, reading the signs like a weatherman did a barometer.
Mallory's throat closed. It wasn't the first time she'd been a source of conflict.
She'd still been a missing child when the two met and married. Phillip hadn't signed on for her. She'd been a wound in her mother's past. A nightmare her mother had finally managed to emerge from with a determination to move on with her life. And then…
I'm back.
When she'd showed up that day, she'd expected her mother to see her as the monster she'd become. She'd expected her mother to recognize that she'd given birth to a demon's spawn—even if that name was just one of many the human race could label him. She'd expected to be sent away.
But instead her mother had welcomed her, fought to make and keep her a part of her new family. If anything, her mother had loved her more fiercely than before she'd been taken.
Phillip allowed himself to be assigned to a table loaded with pizza boxes. He took charge, opening them and creating a stampede.
Mallory hung back until Sorcha grabbed her hand and dragged her forward.
The sausage-and-black-olive slice Phillip knew Mallory would choose hit a paper plate with considerable force. His anger burned her nose and throat like jalapenos.
Squeals announced the clowns, and avoiding contact with them became Mallory's focus. They made her skin crawl with their resemblance to some of the beings who populated Hell, dark jesters with a bent toward cruelty.
She immersed herself in playing games with Austin's guests. She helped her mother police the area for soda cans about to tumble and half-eaten pizza and cupcakes ready to disappear into the furniture or be ground into the carpet.
The chaos kept her away from Phillip. It freed her, restored her. Sucked her fully into normalcy and poured hope into her soul.
She watched Austin opening his presents. She absorbed his joy and wonder, finally handing off tickets that would allow him to drive the electric race cars at an indoor karting center.
He threw his arms around her, putting all his strength in the hug. "You're the best sister in the whole world!"
Her throat tightened. She wished she was the best sister in the world. She wished desperately that Austin and Sorcha's lives would never be impacted by the one her Reaper Lord sire had forced on her when he'd sent one of his minions to collect her, when he'd worked the magic, giving birth to her second form. She wished that it wasn't a choice between maintaining her humanity for them or losing some of it by bargaining for Dane.
Hugging Austin tightly, inhaling the summer-field scent and little-boy smell, ache spread and pushed aside the ability to pretend this was where she belonged.
"Happy birthday," she said, rubbing her cheek against Austin's. "I need to head out now, okay?"
He clung. "Not yet, Mal. Not until we do the pinata."
She let him drag her into the backyard. The stifling heat meant the excitement and anticipation of freeing twenty or thirty pounds of candy waned by the time every kid took several blindfolded swings.
There were strikes. But none of them dented the treasure chest-shaped pinata.
Even Hot Dog gave up his running and frenzied barking in favor of crawling under a patio chair and panting in the shade.
"Let Mallory take a turn," Sorcha said.
Another kid's father manned the pinata. He reeled it up when Mallory accepted the blindfold and bat.
She moved into place and tied the royal blue strip of cloth around her head.
Austin giggled when she took a couple of practice swings like a batter at home plate. "You can do it, Mal!" he shouted.
Usually she'd make a show out of it, swinging so hard she spun. But there were things she needed to do, hunt a runaway then hunt a bond skip on Mulholland.
Her hearing was as keen as her nose and eyesight. She heard the pinata drop like a lead weight at the start of her swing and adjusted, adding enough power to create an explosive thump.
Screams and shouts filled the air, part of a wild scramble as candy shot everywhere, pinging off lawn furniture and sliding glass doors and ceramic pots.
Hot Dog joined the fracas, making her smile. She handed off bat and blindfold to her mother then gave her a quick kiss. "Thanks for inviting me," she said, neither of them mentioning that there'd been another birthday celebration, one with Phillip's family.
Mallory moved away, snagging Sorcha and Austin long enough to say goodbye.
Phillip had slipped her mother's attention. He waited at the front door, the burn of jalapeno replacing the scent of summer fields and candy.
"You visited Bastian Kerr."
She stiffened reflexively, as if caught in a lie after having sworn so many times that she had as little to do with Bastian as possible.
"Wasted trip," she said.
It didn't mollify him. "You nearly slit a man's throat."
You've got spies in place to report on my activities?
"Hardly."
Wrong response. Wrong tone.
The jalapeno burn in her nose and mouth intensified. "If you show up in the news when Kerr goes to trial, if you're in any way associated with him…"
He stopped short of threatening to prevent her from seeing Sorcha and Austin, but it hung in the air between them like a guillotine. And then that guillotine dropped when he said, "I'm looking at job opportunities elsewhere."
Everything inside her stilled. There were treaties, but if Phillip moved her mother and Sorcha to a city belonging to another Reaper Lord, he'd put them in far more danger than she posed.
&nbs
p; "I'll stay out of the news and out of trouble," Mallory said, not allowing herself to contemplate what she might do to prevent Phillip from acting on the threat.
* * * * *
Chapter 3
Caleb's smile was accompanied by ache as the video his mother had posted on a secure site reached the end for a third time, with blonde-haired, blue-eyed Grace opening her arms and the mixed-breed brown-and-gray terrier jumping into them. Then the camera, held by his father, turned to capture his mother, her smile tightening Caleb's throat. "I hope you can make the show."
Me too, Mom. Me too. But he doubted it would happen.
One last stint undercover, then he'd put on the dark suit and look the part of an FBI agent.
He was ready for it. It was time to go after the dream that had accompanied him stateside, of finding a woman he'd like to marry, of eventually having a couple of kids and living near his folks and eleven-year-old Grace, of finally acting the part of brother to the girl his parents had legally adopted.
Yeah, he'd miss the sense of urgency, the edge accompanying undercover work. It mimicked his time in combat though it didn't completely duplicate it.
There were still days he was sorry he'd gotten out of the service. They were offset by the nights he woke in a cold sweat, remembering the killing he'd done while serving his country.
Habit had him wiping the visit to the site from the computer before leaving his desk. Zack was already in the meeting room, managing to look GQ with the hallmark short hair. Hard to believe they'd once tagged him Surfer and expected him to crash and burn at Quantico.
Caleb dropped into a seat, a long mahogany table between them, the only thing on it a thin folder. Zack was a minimalist when it came to paper and a fan of passing a flash drive crammed with data.
"The Powers That Be are calling this one Operation Hellhound and giving us a chance to take a stab at it," Zack said, opening the folder, and dealing the top three photographs onto the table.
A glance and Caleb read them. Two crime scenes. A single man in one apartment. A man and a woman in another. All three victims with solid heart shots, the eerie precision of them sending cold creeping beneath his skin.
"Who they are isn't important," Zack said, "though the information is on the flash drive. What's important is that they were guilty of violently assaulting and robbing a woman who is now in witness protection. She came forward when she learned her boyfriend had hunted these three down and killed them."
Zack dealt out the next picture, a man with coal-black eyes and hair cut close to his scalp. "This is the boyfriend, Bastian Kerr, caught with the gun in his possession. He's entered a not-guilty plea but he's not going to walk on the charges."
Caleb leaned forward for a better look at the mug shot, though he didn't need to. A glance said it all. Kerr was a stone-cold killer.
He didn't know which was worse, a sociopath, or a jihadist full of fervor for the cause and a willingness to die for it. Between his stint in the Army and his time in the FBI, he'd interacted with plenty of both.
"What's the rest of the story?" he asked, accustomed to Zack's flair for using photographs to lay out an operation in the most dramatic way.
"You're going to love this."
Another photo landed on the polished wood, this one of a gun.
Caleb whistled. "Colt M1911, standard-issue firearm for the military from 1911 through 1985, though it was upgraded and became the M1911A1. That looks like the original design."
"According to the experts, it is."
"Not exactly the kind of weapon I'd expect for a hunt-down-and-exact-retribution killing. Stolen?"
Zack laughed. "You might say that. The gun was supposed to have been included in a shred and meltdown of confiscated weapons supervised by the LAPD twelve years ago. Since then the bullets have been matched to three bodies, all found in varying stages of decay, all fresh enough to have happened after the gun should have been destroyed. One corpse was discovered in the Mohave. The other two in the Angeles National Forest."
"Dumped? Or killed there?"
"Coroner says the latter."
"Left where they dropped, not buried?"
"Yes."
"By Kerr?"
"Not enough evidence to charge him, though apparently he'd shown interest in at least two of the victims prior to their disappearance. My read, he did those three."
Caleb picked up on the nuance. "But there are other murders and you don't think he's good for those."
"That your way of telling me to cut to the chase already?"
Caleb's lips quirked upward in a partial smile. "Not unless you're in a hurry to get back to your pencil pushing."
"I'll pass. And yeah, there are others. The gun was used in four killings in Georgia. The murderer was caught after the last two—his wife and her boyfriend. The M1911 was supposed to have been destroyed by the Georgia Department of Corrections. It wasn't, despite there being records saying it was. It showed up in California and was matched to five victims when the LAPD took possession of it the first time and also supposedly destroyed it."
"So how'd Kerr end up with it?"
"There's a question we'll probably never get an answer to."
"Fifteen deaths associated with the M1911. Not something I'd expect."
"You don't have all the details to calculate the really interesting part. I'll supply the numerical breakdown. The crimes that led to the arrests of Kerr and the other two involved the perpetrator's significant other and took place in the city. Six bodies total. All the other corpses were discovered in remote settings. Here's another little tidbit for you to worry over. Every shot was a direct hit to the heart. Passed perfectly through the ribs, a couple nicks but no ricocheting and not a single one exited. In all cases the bullet was recovered in the remains, which is why we're able to positively identify the gun."
"Impossible."
"You'd think given a forty-five at close range."
"Unless they were all hand loads. Less powder. But why? And how likely is it that everyone who used the gun did the same thing?"
"I'm so glad you asked." With a dramatic toss, Zack fired a couple of booking photos across the table one after another. They stopped next to the shot of Bastian Kerr, one compliments of the California Prison System, the other from the Georgia Department of Corrections. The resemblance between the three murderers was startling.
"Brothers? Cousins?"
"Fair warning, this investigation is going to venture into the weird."
"As if it hasn't already?"
Zack gave a snort of laughter. "DNA says these three are related, but there is no documented familial connection between any of them."
"And they're not talking."
"Kerr is the only one still alive. The other two got themselves killed in prison. And no, Kerr's not talking."
"The victims left in remote places, they have anything in common?"
"Nothing obvious. Or nothing that's been passed on to us."
Zack dealt out additional photographs of the three felons, taken by prison officials as part of their gang identification practices. All three men had identical brands burned into the flesh of their left upper arms. From shoulder to elbow, a hound ran as if in pursuit of prey.
"And Operation Hellhound was born," Caleb said, gut twisting and going ice cold at what the brand and the bodies found in the Mojave and Angeles National Forest suggested. "We're looking at a vigilante group that picks a target and hunts him."
"That's my read of what's in the file I got. Bringing them to justice is going to be difficult. According to what's in the file, the suspected members make every surveillance team and slip their leashes whenever the mood strikes. Only break so far is that someone got a listener in the titty bar Kerr ran. The actual owner of the place, the Brass Ring, remains a mystery."
"There's a lot of traffic in and out of a room that's got a palm scanner. The door has been stuck every time an agent has tried to go in as a building inspector. They've got some kind of j
ammer going 24/7. It's a cellular dead zone. Best guess is that the bar is the only place they talk business."
"But someone managed to get something. Who initiated this operation?"
"Apparently that's need to know and you and I don't qualify. But I can tell you why it got kicked to us. This is probably the first and last chance of infiltrating the group. It just so happens you're a fit thanks to the money Uncle Sam has invested in you."
Caleb curbed the question as to fit when Zack added another photograph to the collection already on the table. "First up. Hayden Welker. He's now running the Brass Ring. Word of warning, he has a nose for weapons. Don't know how he does it, but he zeroes in on anyone carrying and kicks them out, so choose your moment to go in armed."
Caleb nodded and studied the picture. Black hair worn short on the sides and spikey on the top. Piercing black eyes. A facial structure similar to the three murderers. In the shot, Welker was wearing a vest with no shirt, making it easy to see the brand. "He running prostitutes out of the bar?"
"Some of the waitresses moonlight. LAPD has looked into it, picked up a few of the girls for soliciting, but overall judged it small potatoes. If he's taking a cut or running them, none of the girls are rolling on him."
A flick of Zack's wrist and another photograph joined the one of Hayden Welker. Longish hair, same overall look but sporting a goatee and mustache. "Dane Mora. Earns a living chasing bail skips. Sometimes involves himself in searching for missing persons. More on that later. Currently off the radar screen."
"Next up. Mikhail Loban. Heroin junkie. Apparently lives completely on the street. Goes to the titty bar for food some days, other days one of them will hunt him down and haul him there. The LAPD picked him up. He doesn't talk while in custody."
"Literally?"
"Yeah. Won't say a word. Not to anyone, nurses, doctors or planted cellmates. Interesting thing is, this guy has no history before the first time he entered the system on a vagrancy charge a few years back. No ID. Fingerprints and DNA don't pop on any database."
Caleb studied the image. He wouldn't have made Loban for a junkie given the clean clothes and healthy appearance.