Hunter of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  When he turned back, Max was nose to nose with him. His eyes were hot gold disks swimming in red. His hand caught Silas about the throat.

  “Did you think I was going to let you take my brother? Think again.”

  Keeping his arms at his sides was the most difficult thing MacCreedy had ever done. Don’t react. Don’t give him an excuse to kill you.

  Savoie’s hand squeezed tight and Silas’s world went dark. Instead of struggling against that suffocating hand, he gathered every last ounce of strength and spat in Savoie’s face. “Fuck you.”

  Savoie’s expression blanked as he wiped his face with his free hand. Then, with one mighty gesture, he flung MacCreedy the length of the room, through the glass sliding doors, and out onto the rooftop patio.

  Silas heard Max crunch his way purposefully across the broken glass as he struggled onto his knees. Savoie gripped the back of his head, smashing his face into the pebbled floor.

  “Who are you? What is your clan?”

  “I have no clan,” Silas snarled. He hooked his arm back to snag Savoie about the neck and pulled him off his feet, giving Silas time to stagger to his own. He reeled back to put some distance between them, then assumed a boldly offensive position.

  Savoie rose up with a lethally powerful grace. “Who are your people?” Max demanded again.

  “I have no people. They’re all dead because of your father.” He spat again, this time blood from a split lip, right between Savoie’s feet.

  Max’s rage chilled to a somber intensity. “Who sent you?”

  There was no reason to lie completely, not when he could wield a partial truth like a double-edged sword. “The Terriots, my uncle’s clan, to restore their heir. My half sister’s son, your father’s second son.”

  Max absorbed that information without a flicker of emotion. Then, surprisingly, he turned and went back into the apartment.

  Breathing hard, seething with decades of rage, MacCreedy followed. Part of him longed to push for conflict to settle his need for closure. He hungered to tear into the object of his frustration and pain. He’d thought of little else even as he promised Brigit to see to their business first. Why shouldn’t he have both his revenge and his redemption?

  Max stood behind the bar, pulling mineral water out of a small refrigerator to fill two glasses. He pushed one of them across the glossy top to MacCreedy, tense and ready on the other side. He took the glass, forcing the liquid past his bruised throat but refusing to grimace.

  “Tell me,” Max said.

  “I’m not telling you a damned thing,” Silas vowed fiercely.

  “Tell me why you stand there with a thirst for my blood in your eyes. What have I ever done to you or your family? If the cause is just, we’ll finish this between us right here and now.”

  Yes, they would. “When Rollo Moytes stole your mother before her contract with the Terriots was completed, he started a war between the clans. The Terriots were more powerful and unforgiving. They decimated the Moyteses, every male, female, and child, but that didn’t end things. Failing to bring your mother’s bloodline in with their own created an imbalance within the houses. The Terriots were challenged by the Guedrys and by several other smaller clans who wouldn’t have dared before. The only way the Terriots could hold their position was to make a strong political match.”

  MacCreedy broke off, swallowing the rest of the water. It went down like shards of glass, the way retelling this story did. But he wanted Max Savoie to know how his father’s selfish act had created ripples of destruction that shattered so many lives.

  “My mother was a Guedry, far above my father in standing, but she loved him enough to mate with and marry him. She loved our quiet life outside the ugly conflicts of the clans, and she loved me and my sister. Too much to resist when the Terriots forced a bargain: her family’s lives in exchange for a Terriot heir.”

  So without telling her husband, Therese MacCreedy mated with Bram Terriot, who was to have fathered a child with Marie Savory, but instead created a baby girl with her. And for almost three years, the MacCreedys raised that child, Christina, believing her to be part of their family. Until Bram Terriot sent word that he would be coming for his progeny.

  “What did your father do when he learned the truth?”

  Silas glanced up at Max, having forgotten him. “He loved Christina and still thought of her as his own, and he loved my mother above his pride. He didn’t blame her for what she’d done, only that she hadn’t trusted him with it sooner.”

  “So they decided that, rather than surrender this child they loved, they would hide her away,” Max surmised. “They gave her to Father Furness at St. Bart’s.”

  “Yes.”

  “And when Terriot came for his child?”

  “My parents refused to tell him where she was. He gave them twenty-four hours to produce her.”

  “And when they didn’t?”

  Instead of giving a direct answer, MacCreedy approached it gradually, keeping tight control on his emotions. “My parents sat us down—me, my sister, and Kendra, the child of my father’s cousin, who lived with us—and told us what they’d done and how that could affect us all. We all agreed to protect Christina with our silence because she was family, part of us.” His eyes became an eerie bright blue. “We had no idea what they were capable of.

  “At the end of that twenty-four hours, they brought us the heads of all our relatives and threw them down on the floor of our living room. My mother’s sisters, her nieces and nephews, Kendra’s father, who refused to cooperate with his own family by betraying mine, my uncles, my cousins.” He paused, remembering the shocking sight of all those familiar faces with expressions caught in silent screams. “When my parents still refused to tell him where they’d hidden Christina, they took my father apart piece by piece in front of my mother. When she still wouldn’t speak, they threatened to do the same to her children. She knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her silence, so she attacked one of them and died to protect us.”

  Max reached beneath the bar and produced a bottle of bourbon, pouring a liberal amount into each of their glasses.

  “To family,” he said quietly, “and the sacrifices they make for one another.”

  MacCreedy tossed back the contents, letting the liquid burn all the way down.

  “How did you manage to stay alive?” Max asked.

  “I convinced them that my sister, Kendra, and I would be valuable assets to the House of Terriot. As hostages at first, in case any of the other houses objected to their barbarity, then as loyal and grateful subjects.”

  “And they believed you?”

  “My parents were well-known pacifists. After my intentions were tested for a few days, I managed to impress them with my humility and a promise we wouldn’t rise up against them.”

  Max didn’t need it spelled out. They’d tortured him. “You didn’t tell them where Tina was.”

  “I didn’t know.” His voice roughened. “I wouldn’t have told them if I did. I’d dishonor myself to save the girls, but I would have died before dishonoring my father.”

  Max refilled their glasses. “And I would die before becoming like mine.” He studied the rich golden liquor for a moment. “I recently made the error of thinking a father’s sins could be purged through the punishment of his daughter. I wouldn’t want you to make that same mistake. Rollo Moytes was a coward, a liar, and a thief who sold me to a mobster to become his obedient killer. He was a man without honor, who cared for himself above all else, and he died the same way. My father was everything you believed him to be and worse.” He took a quick, fierce swallow.

  “You were wronged by my father’s actions. Though I took no part in them, I honor your right for revenge. I don’t want your blood on my hands, but if you’re determined to go after mine, it’s only fair that you take the first swing.”

  If he was fast and fearless, that first strike would decapitate Savoie. MacCreedy’s nails began to lengthen into wicked claws. He was strong
enough to mete out that killing blow—but suddenly he lacked the desire to.

  Slightly dazed by the revelation, Silas murmured, “You weren’t responsible for my family’s slaughter. And killing you won’t bring them back or lessen their loss.”

  Max shrugged. “I’m not my father’s son, but you are obviously yours.”

  Surprised by that sudden assessment, Silas felt his throat tighten. Then as quickly as it was given, the compliment was torn away.

  “So you plan to steal my brother, and let the monsters who murdered your family raise him? Where’s the honor in that?”

  MacCreedy fought the sickness inside him to speak his practiced argument. “They’ll protect him from other, more dangerous threats.”

  “I can protect him.”

  Silas shook his head. “I don’t think you can. You’re alone, with only that ragged band of leftovers at your back. They have an army trained only to fight and die.”

  “My clan will fight—”

  “And they will die. Didn’t you wonder why I didn’t fight back against the Terriots? Why I didn’t fight back against you a few minutes ago?”

  Max lifted a curious brow and waited.

  “Because I couldn’t beat the odds, so I have to be smart and patient and play the cards I’ve been given. It’s a shitty hand, but it’s all I have. And as long as the Terriots don’t see me as a threat, I can keep my promise to my parents and see my family’s security and name restored.”

  “By giving them their heir.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “He’ll be well cared for. He’ll have the best of everything. And he’ll be safe. He’ll be with family.”

  “A family of greedy, savage killers? Where he can learn to be just like them?”

  “And what is he learning from you, Max?”

  It was a blow Max couldn’t defend as easily as he wished, so he changed tactics. “You lived amongst them. Is that how you’d see your nephew raised?”

  “I lived with them, not amongst them,” MacCreedy clarified. His eyes again took on that eerie blue flame. “I was the son of a traitor and they never let me forget that shame.”

  “Yet you’d go back there?”

  “If I returned with their prodigal, acting on his behalf, things would be very different.”

  “They’d welcome you with open arms and embrace you,” Max drawled. “So you can have your share of the power and wealth?”

  “No. I’ll have their respect. And then no one will dare challenge my family; my sister and Kendra will be safe. They’ll be able to make good matches, strong alliances, have good futures instead of living in disgrace and fear. All the things they deserve.”

  “You think surrendering freedom will guarantee your safety?” Max chuckled. “Is that the life your mother and father wanted for you? Living under the thumb of those who don’t give a damn about you? What they wanted for you, you won’t find there with your enemies. They won’t respect you. They’ll fear you because they couldn’t break you, and because of that, they’ll never trust you. They’ll send someone like your deadly little girlfriend to take care of the problem you’ve become.”

  “I don’t care what happens to me.”

  “If you let them use you as their tool, you’ll never become more than the blunt instrument of their greed. I know something about that. Your sacrifices will be for nothing, and your family will lose their protection.”

  Silas held his stare, not blinking, not backing down.

  Max sighed and shook his head. “Tina and Oscar are your family, too. Don’t forget what others were willing to sacrifice for them. Unless it’s Tina’s choice to go with you, I’ll do everything in my power to stop you.”

  “I understand.”

  “But you won’t change your mind?”

  “I can’t.”

  “It won’t please me to kill you.”

  “I can’t say I’ll be too happy about it, either.”

  Max placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll drop you off at the precinct.”

  “No. Take me back to my apartment.” Suddenly it seemed imperative for him to hear his sister’s message.

  Max scowled as he watched MacCreedy disappear inside his building. A shame to waste a man of such talent and integrity. Now the problem lay with Tina and what she’d decide was best for her son. And he wasn’t as confident as he wanted to be in that regard. She had come to him with her concerns about MacCreedy’s offer, but it might appeal to her in the end. There was no guessing what a mother was willing to do for her child.

  “To the office, Pete. I’ve got a meeting to prepare for.”

  With Francis Petitjohn. Another problem he’d let go unchallenged for far too long.

  As Pete guided the big vehicle through the crowded midmorning streets, Max pondered his many dilemmas. MacCreedy and his lethal lover. Petitjohn and Blutafino scheming together. Charlotte straying to just the other side of complete truthfulness. The awful possibility of having to let Oscar go. He closed his eyes, blanking his thoughts as Pete picked up speed and they left the Quarter.

  Then the brakes locked up with a shriek and the stench of burning rubber. A loud thump sounded near the driver’s front fender.

  “I didn’t see him, Mr. Savoie,” Pete said, upset but still with the presence of mind to flip on the hazard flashers. “He just was there. I couldn’t avoid him.”

  Pete had opened the car door to check on the pedestrian, but there was no one lying in the street.

  The quick blat of a silenced gunshot dropped Pete across the front seat, crimson blooming on his white polo shirt. A man leaned in through the door, firing three more shots into Max.

  The impact took Max in the chest, flinging him backward. Fiery shafts of agony followed as the silver slugs burned deep. As he slumped down, stunned, with consciousness ebbing dangerously, Max saw an unfamiliar Shifter stretch over the seat to finish him. Max caught his assailant by the neck and hauled him inside, where they grappled for possession of the gun. Several more shots and subsequent jolts of pain.

  Meanwhile the car slowly moved forward, picking up speed as Pete struggled to sit up behind the wheel to control the hurtling vehicle’s trajectory. Right into the gas station across the intersection, where a startled teenager fueling up his Jeep saw them coming, his cigarette falling from his mouth as he leapt to safety while dropping the hose.

  And Max’s world burst into flames with a huge explosion.

  Fourteen

  Cee Cee entered the apartment, followed by Nica and Lena Blutafino. She was in her guise of Chili Pepper, former exotic dancer and now mistress of the wealthy heir to Jimmy Legere’s mob fortune. She paused, puzzled by the sight of workmen reinstalling the patio slider.

  “Oh, my,” Lena murmured as she walked the length of the huge open space. “This is wonderful. You should do something organic, something that brings the river and the city together. A waterfall here on this wall against old stone and brick. Imagine the sound.”

  While Cee Cee took Lena on a tour, Nica was inexplicably drawn to the long ebony bar. She traced her fingers down the cool length, wondering what she was looking for until she touched a dried stain. Blood? She chipped at it with her nail, sniffed, then tasted. Her knees went weak.

  Silas.

  Her senses swam. Had Savoie killed him?

  Why hadn’t he taken her warning seriously?

  She glanced at the replacement patio door with a terrible chill of knowledge, and alarm shook through her until her teeth chattered. A dizzying swirl of anguish made her clench her jaws against the need to wail out loud. Loss ripped open a void in her soul so cold and stark it sucked at her like an emotional black hole.

  He couldn’t be gone. She couldn’t comprehend not seeing him again, hearing his low voice, feeling the eager anticipation his touch stirred inside her, mentally sparring with him, making love with him.

  He can’t be dead.

  Beneath that surge of sorrow came
a soft saving whisper.

  At least he didn’t die by my hand.

  What kind of animal was she that she could find relief in the fact that she hadn’t been the one to end his life? Would she have? Could she have? Fearing the answer made her sickness swell.

  “Silk,” Lena was saying as they came back from the bedrooms and bath. “Chocolate and cream. Rich, smooth, and sinful, with cream-colored lace edges, like whipped topping on a sundae. Gold lighting and bath fixtures. How’s that for a start?”

  “I can’t wait to have a good long soak. I wish I’d had a setup like that when I was performing. Between the shower massage and the Jacuzzi, I might have been able to squeeze a little more enjoyment out of the evening.”

  Cee Cee and Lena shared a laugh before the undercover detective caught sight of Nica’s pinched features.

  “Nica, thanks for bringing Lena to my attention,” she began. “I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with this place and she’s full of great suggestions.”

  “They’ll be expensive,” Lena warned with an anxious smile.

  Cee Cee waved a negligent hand. “Oh, Max doesn’t care about the cost. He just wants me to be happy.”

  Lena’s expression grew bittersweet. “Manny was like that when we first met.”

  Before Cee Cee could jump on that opening, Nica asked, “Have you talked to Max lately? Do you know where he is?”

  Cee Cee gave her a stabbing glance to remind her of the roles they were playing. “He said something about meetings this afternoon. Then he said he’d try to slip over to see me.” She looked around at the mostly bare space. “Once this is all nice and cozy, he won’t be in such a hurry to rush off. When do you think you could get started?”

  Lena’s eyes grew glassy. “Really? You want to hire me?”

  “I’d be crazy not to. You said you had some samples?”

  They spread the books of fabric swatches on the bar. Nica stood silently beside them, her hand pressed over that dark stain as her insides continued to tremble. The excited chatter as Cee Cee worked a potential witness/informant dimmed into a low buzz, and her surroundings seemed to lose all color and depth. Nica’s world compressed into one of flat, gray misery, until a knock at the apartment door quickened a sudden rush of expectation.