The Hunt

by Chloe Neill

  “What’s the problem?” he asked. He glanced at me, seemed to satisfy himself that I was in one piece, then looked at Gavin. “Eleanor?”

  “She’s fine. With Erida at the main house. It’s about Broussard.”

  Liam’s brows lifted. He hadn’t been expecting to hear that. “What about him?”

  “We’ve come too far to beat around the bush,” Gavin said, “so I’ll get to the point. He’s dead, and you’re the prime suspect.”

  For a moment, Liam just stared at him. “What?”

  “Broussard was murdered, killed in his house. They think you did it, because ‘For Gracie’ was scrawled on the wall above the body.”

  There was no hiding the emotion in Liam’s gaze now, no suppressing the rage that boiled there. “Someone is using our sister’s death to frame me for murdering a Containment agent.” His voice was low, dangerous. A panther, angry and pacing.

  “That’s part one,” Gavin said. “Your knife was used to slit his throat.”

  Brow furrowed, Liam felt for the small utility knife holstered on his belt. “What knife?”

  “Well, not that one, obviously. The blade mounted to the antler handle. The one I gave you—what was it, two years ago? Three? The one I found in Mobile.”

  The confusion in Liam’s eyes faded to what I thought was speculation. “I haven’t seen that knife in months. I don’t even own it anymore.”

  “You gave away my knife?”

  “You gave the knife to me. It was mine to keep or give away.”

  Gavin rolled his eyes, made a frustrated sound. “Who’d you give it to?”

  “Not to anyone who’d kill Broussard.”

  “All evidence to the contrary,” Gavin sniped. “I want a name.”

  “I’m not giving you one.”

  “Stubborn bastard,” Gavin murmured. “Who has the knife?”

  Liam shook his head, which sent Gavin on a tear of Cajun French.

  “This isn’t helping,” I said sharply, cutting through the cursing.

  They both looked at me, then dragged hands across their jaws. I wondered if the move had been buried in their DNA.

  “I don’t know who has it,” Liam said. “That’s the truth. I could find out. But that needs to be . . . careful.”

  There was humming silence for a moment. “All right,” Gavin said. “Sleep on it. Then you owe me names. There’s a bounty on your head, and I’m not giving you up that easy.”

  Liam finished off his water, began to strip the label from the bottle. He did that when he was agitated. “Is someone eager to get me back to New Orleans, or just to pass the blame?”

  “Hard to say.” Gavin finished his water as well and recapped the bottle. “Could be either. Both.”

  “If Containment wants to close the book on the murder,” Liam continued, “they say Broussard’s dead, Liam Quinn did it, so no need to look further?”

  “That’s my guess, and Gunnar’s. There are people in Containment who believe it. You’ve got a few enemies. Maybe not as many as Broussard, but enough to make trouble.”

  Liam pushed the wadded label into his pocket and began to flip the bottle idly in his hand. After a moment, he looked up. “Who’d Broussard piss off?”

  “We don’t know,” Gavin said. “We don’t know of any specific enemies, or at least not any new ones. Plenty of people didn’t like him. We don’t know anyone who hated him enough to kill him.”

  “Who’d I piss off?” Liam wondered. “I mean, why me particularly?”

  “Maybe someone,” Gavin said. “Maybe no one. Could be as simple as opportunity: someone knows you had a beef with Broussard, thinks you’re a convenient target.”

  “Only if they don’t think too closely about the fact that I didn’t have the opportunity to kill him.”

  “Your innocence doesn’t seem to matter,” Gavin said.

  “Have you talked to Gunnar?” Liam looked at me. It was the first question he’d asked me directly.

  “Not since the battle.”

  “He hasn’t come by Royal Mercantile?”

  “Couldn’t say. Tadji’s running the store now. I haven’t been there since the battle.”

  Whatever he was feeling, his face gave nothing away. “I see.”

  “Containment’s offered passes for some of the Paras,” Gavin said. “But they haven’t changed their position regarding Sensitives. Claire used magic during the battle. Ergo . . .”

  “Ergo,” Liam quietly agreed. He shifted his gaze away, his expression still unreadable. And again, I wavered between feeling hurt, worrying about him, and being flat-out confused.

  “Speaking of, you need to be careful out here. We talked to Cherie; she said a PCC patrol had been by the marina. And we met two hunters on the way in. They wanted to execute the bounty on you, take Claire in for the field goal.”

  Liam looked at me. “You’re all right?”

  “I’m fine. It was a minor incident, all things considered.”

  Emotion flared gold in his eyes. “An attack on you isn’t minor. I don’t want you getting hurt on my account.” He said nothing else. He didn’t reach out, didn’t try to comfort or soothe. But if his feelings for me had disappeared, or faded away, why the emotion?

  When Gavin cleared his throat, Liam shifted his gaze toward him. “I assume you didn’t let them follow you here?”

  Gavin gave him a look of brotherly irritation. “It’s not my first day on the job. We left them at Montagne Désespérée.”

  For the first time, a corner of Liam’s mouth lifted. Even after many nights and miles apart, and regardless of his feelings, that wicked smile had a powerful effect. “Not a bad idea.”

  Gavin grunted. “Easy for you to say.” He looked at me, pointed at Liam. “He’s the bastard who left me there.”

  I risked a glance at Liam. “And why did you do that?”

  “He needed a time-out.” He watched me for a moment, and I met his gaze beat for heavy beat. “Your magic is better.”

  “I’ve been practicing. How is yours?”

  To his credit, he didn’t look away. “Fine.”

  “The magic was enough to make you leave,” I said, “but not enough for you to talk about?”

  “It’s not that simple.” Liam rose, obviously restless, and put the bottle in a bucket. Then he came back and looked down at us, his gaze settling on me again. “You’re here to warn me?”

  If the question was a test, I didn’t know the right answer. It was Gavin who spoke.

  “Yes,” he said. “They’ve also mentioned looking for Eleanor. If they’re willing to plant evidence and send out hunters, they’re willing to do worse. We want to be sure you’re both safe.”

  Liam acknowledged that with a nod. “Then thank you for warning me.”

  Gavin nodded, and Liam headed for the door. “It’s getting dark. Let’s get back to the house.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  By the time we made it, darkness had fallen.

  “You’ll stay here tonight,” Eleanor said. “We’ll have a fire.”

  Since I was bone-deep tired—physically and emotionally—that sounded good to me.

  The Quinn boys prepared the bonfire, logs and branches in a brick fire pit, and arranged camp chairs around it.

  Eleanor and I took neighboring chairs, watching forks of flame lift and crackle. Beyond the fire’s reach, the world was dark, but the bayou was loud with frogs, insects, and the calls of animals.

  Liam came out and took a seat on Eleanor’s other side, the chair angled just enough for his gaze to fall on me.

  And fall it did. Intense and searching. But he still hadn’t given voice to anything he was feeling, whatever that might have been.

  “Dinner,” Malachi said, and I shifted my gaze from the fire to the enamel mug he offered. The metal was hot,
and the steam that wafted up smelled of meat and onion and the bright green flavor I recognized as filé.

  He sat down beside me, his broad shoulders and muscular body almost comically large in the slender chair.

  “Nothing for you?” I asked. He’d brought only the one cup.

  He shook his head and crossed his arms, watching Liam warily beneath half-closed lids. I’d assumed Malachi and Liam had discussed Liam’s magic, but maybe I’d been wrong. Maybe Gavin and I weren’t the only ones who hadn’t seen it, who didn’t know what kind of power he was carrying. Or how it had affected him.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  “Spoon,” Gavin said behind him, pulling two from his pocket, offering one to me. “I’m not entirely sure what variety of gumbo this is.”

  “Probably crawfish,” I said. “Or didn’t you recognize the traps?”

  “I don’t trap,” Gavin said, fanning a mouthful of still-steaming gumbo. “Hot,” he confirmed, and swallowed with a wince.

  I pulled out a spoonful, but let it cool before I took a stingy bite. It was thick enough to stand the spoon straight up, dark as coffee, and absolutely delicious.

  “Not a bad way to spend an evening,” Gavin said, casting a glance at Liam. He leaned forward as if studying the fire, hands clasped in front of him.

  “The fire is good,” I said. “The bayou is . . . intimidating.”

  Gavin smiled. “Didn’t spend much time out of the city, did you?”

  “I camped at City Park once for a field trip. But otherwise, no.” Even the gas station, which was supposed to be an emergency bunker, was loaded with tech, including the air conditioner, dehumidifier, and solar generator that had kept my father’s collection safe.

  A steady beat began to fill the air, and it took me a moment to realize what I was hearing.

  “Is that—is that the Go-Go’s?” Eighties pop didn’t find its way into the Zone very often.

  “It is,” Erida said, pulling a chair to the fire. Like Malachi, she didn’t carry a bowl. But she did have a beer, which raised my opinion of her. Or at least made her seem a little more human. “Our esteemed general has a great love of eighties music.”

  I looked at Malachi, tried to imagine him—tall and broad-shouldered, a young god’s cap of wavy curls—dancing to Bananarama or Michael Jackson, or wailing away on an air guitar to Journey. The image didn’t work.

  “Please provide details,” I said.

  Malachi smiled. “It’s . . . hopeful.” He lifted a shoulder and seemed faintly embarrassed by the entire discussion. “And very different from the music of the Beyond.”

  He’d said the Beyond was orderly and regimented. “So what did you have?” I smiled at him. “Baroque classical music? Maybe lyres? Golden harps?”

  “Consularis Paranormals do not care for instruments,” Erida said.

  “Don’t do instruments?” Gavin asked, pulling a shrimp from its tail with his teeth and tossing the tail into the darkness over his shoulder.

  “Instruments are unnecessary when the voice is prepared,” Malachi said, his gaze on Erida. “That’s the tradition in our society.”

  “So, like a cappella?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Erida said. “Although with complexities not recognized in the human form.”

  “Dozens of voices in careful and precise layers,” Malachi said. “Well-ordered, as are most things in the Beyond. Intricately constructed, each song prepared and performed for a very particular circumstance.”

  No wonder he liked eighties music. It wasn’t “intricately constructed,” and it was certainly more emotional and spontaneous than the music he was describing.

  “Give us a taste,” Gavin said.

  “Please,” Eleanor added. “I’d really enjoy it.”

  Malachi looked at Erida, who nodded.

  I couldn’t have said when the song began, only that it slowly surrounded us. No words, just the gentle rise and fall of their voices, which danced together, then swirled apart into higher and lower notes, then dipped back together again. The melody was complex, even with only two voices performing the parts, and it lifted goose bumps along my arms.

  By the time they stopped, my head was swimming. Residual magic, I guessed.

  “Damn,” Gavin said, running a hand over his head. “Powerful stuff.”

  “What was it about?” I asked.

  “It’s a tale of battle and bravery,” Erida said. “And the honor of loss.”

  “There’s nothing honorable in loss,” Liam said.

  “In your world, that may be true,” Erida said. “Our world was different.”

  Their world sounded cold and constrained. That didn’t justify the Court’s attempt to bring their revolution to our door, but I could understand how they’d have felt straitjacketed.

  “We’ve now told you about one of our rituals,” Malachi said, glancing at me. “Tell us one of yours.”

  “One of ours? You’ve lived among humans for years.”

  “I’ve lived near humans for years,” he said, “but outside their communities, and in a place mostly denuded by war.”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way, of how much he’d have missed by living in the Zone instead of outside it. Not to mention the fact that nearly all humans would have considered him an enemy if they’d known what he truly was.

  “Okay,” I said, and let my mind wander to the place where I kept my memories of life before the war. “Kids had slumber parties, where you’d go sleep at someone else’s house for fun.”

  Malachi blinked. “Why would it be fun to sleep in someone else’s home?”

  “Because there would be food,” Gavin said. He’d finished his gumbo and stretched out, ankles crossed, and hands linked across his flat abdomen. “And music. Booze, if you were old enough.” He grinned. “Girls, if the parents were out of town.”

  “So it was a mating ritual?” Malachi asked.

  “No,” Gavin said with a laugh. “The kids at slumber parties weren’t usually old enough for that. And if they were, there wasn’t much slumbering.”

  “We had football games,” I said. “A game involving a ball and a march down a field. You’d have liked it,” I said to Malachi. “It’s regimented and orderly, like two armies facing each other across a battle line. That’s how a lot of people in Louisiana spent their weekends.”

  “Marching down a field or facing off across a battle line?”

  I knew he was teasing me. “Watching football on television. And drinking beer.”

  “That doesn’t sound very rigorous,” Erida said. I didn’t think she was teasing.

  “Don’t tell the members of my fantasy league that,” Gavin said. At Erida’s raised brow, he shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “So humans,” Malachi began, “for entertainment, slept in a stranger’s house and watched strangers engage in battle?”

  “It’s a little more complex than that,” Gavin said, and lifted his gaze to his silent brother. “And what about you, Liam? What rituals do you remember that you’d like to enlighten our friends about?”

  “Do plumbing and electricity count?”

  “They do,” Eleanor said with a smile. “Very much so. I love a good ceiling fan in the summertime.”

  I glanced at Liam, expecting to see at least a half-smile on his face, but his body had gone rigid. I looked up, watched silent warning flash across Erida’s and Malachi’s faces, and followed the direction of their gazes.

  Deep in the trees, where cypress knees emerged from shadowed water, hovered a pale green light. It was the color of spring leaves, and it floated like a cloud a few feet above the ground. But there was no bulb or fork of flame. Just a fog that grew nearer, transforming dark and silhouetted branches into threatening claws.

  “Feu follet,” Gavin whispered. “Will-o’-the-wisp.”

 
The hair lifted on the back of my neck. But Liam and Malachi rose. Erida and Gavin moved closer to Eleanor.

  Instinct told me to snatch a torch from the fire, run back to the house, and lock myself inside. But I wasn’t going to run—and certainly not in front of this crowd—so I slowly stood, locked my knees tight, and moved behind Liam and Malachi.

  Without taking his gaze off the light, Gavin reached out, took Eleanor’s hand, whispered something to her. She nodded, glanced casually in the direction of the light . . . and smiled.

  “Friends,” she said quietly, taking another sip from her teacup, as smoothly as a woman at high tea. I trusted her instinct and relaxed a little, but kept my gaze on the light.

  It drew closer, the single cloud separating into a dozen smaller pinpoints.

  Malachi chuckled. “Not will-o’-the-wisps,” he said.

  “No,” Erida agreed. “Just run-of-the-mill Peskies.”

  Peskies were tiny Paras with dragonfly wings, curvy bodies, and not a scrap of clothing. They were about twice the size of hummingbirds and four times as nasty.

  They didn’t like being called “run-of-the-mill.” They let out shrieks sharp as an ice pick and began to dive-bomb us. One buzzed around my face, her wings moving so quickly they were a haze behind her. Then she gave me an ugly stare and flipped me off.

  The gesture definitely translated.

  “Right back at you, honey,” I said, and got a double eagle in response.

  “Don’t antagonize the Peskies,” Liam said, his gaze still on the trees.

  “She flipped me off first,” I grumbled, and swatted her away when she tried to blitz me again. That triggered a stream of foreign cursing. But I didn’t need to understand the words to get the gist.

  They stepped out of the woods in sequence, led by a tall man with a barrel chest and thin legs in jeans, a T-shirt, and rubber boots. He carried a bucket in one hand, a shotgun in the other. Although a gun in the hand of a stranger should have made me wary, the three kids—all with their father’s skinny legs—appeared behind him, all smiles.

  All four of them had tan skin, high cheekbones, and dark hair that came to sharp widow’s peaks.