Viper Game

by Christine Feehan

  He surveyed the brush and leaves. Malichai was right. Whatever it was had been shot and had lost a great deal of blood. They followed the blood trail deeper into the interior of the swamp. There was a spot where the creature had halted and the smaller one had joined it. There were no more tracks, but a few broken limbs on the bushes gave them away.

  "Uh-oh," Wyatt said aloud. "I think the smaller one was hit too."

  "That doesn't surprise me," Malichai replied. "They must have sprayed two hundred rounds into the swamp."

  "The blood trail ends here," Ezekiel pointed out. "Whatever it is, it's adept at hiding itself. I can't even catch a scent."

  Wyatt sighed. "We'll come back at daylight and see if we can pick anything up."

  "Good idea," Malichai said with a huge grin. "Grand-mere's cooking is calling."

  Chapter 3

  Wyatt used sheer muscle to power the pirogue quickly through the shallow waters of the bayou back toward his grandmother's property. The moon was no more than a sliver in the dark skies. Charcoal-painted clouds roiled above their heads and the water appeared an inky black surrounding them.

  "Storm's comin' in," Wyatt announced softly, and redoubled his efforts.

  The wind picked up and the branches of the cypress trees, knobby knees in the water, swayed, setting the long trails of moss swinging macabrely. The long vines of moss swept the surface of the water and looked, in the wind, like hundreds of spidery arms reaching for them.

  Ezekiel grinned at his brother. "This is living, Malichai. I could get used to this."

  Malichai shoved with the long pole, helping Wyatt to move the pirogue around the finger of land choked with tall reeds and back into the canal that would take them home.

  "That's because you're sitting on your ass watching me work," Malichai replied.

  Ezekiel nodded. "I had noticed that unusual detail. But then, you'll want a good appetite when we hit Grand-mere's kitchen."

  Wyatt ignored the byplay. He knew when the heavens opened up, a torrent of rain would come down and the water would rise fast. The swamps and marshes were already at full capacity. He pushed himself harder, feeling the unease building in the bayou. It was always that way, subtle, but easy for one to feel if you were tuned to it.

  As he neared the pier, he glanced up to the two-story house that had been his home for much of his life. The familiar light was on in Nonny's bedroom. When her "boys" came home for visits, she didn't go to sleep until they were all safe under the roof. That light meant home to him, it always had - a loving welcome even when sometimes the words weren't spoken aloud.

  The parlor light was on, unusual for that time of night. Nonny rarely had more than one light on in the house, especially if she was alone. He shoved with the pole, scooting them up the center of the canal, nearing the pier. That brought the entire house into his vision. A third light was on in the kitchen. Three lights. With anyone else, that might seem natural. No possible way with his grandmother.

  They had no money in the early days and very little as they grew up. Things like electricity cost money and were never used unless absolutely necessary. Nonny still used candles in the house and sometimes gas lanterns, but never three electric lights.

  Adrenaline hit hard, flooding his system. The water churned beneath the pirogue and the Fortunes brothers gripped the sides and stared at him, faces suddenly grim, waiting for him to let them know what was wrong.

  Stay quiet. Nonny's in trouble. Before the dogs could catch their scent, Wyatt sent them a silent message to remain silent.

  Neither man asked questions. They knew him. Trusted him. They'd served hundreds of rescue missions together under heavy fire and they knew he was as steady as a rock. If he said Nonny was in trouble, she was. Wyatt never wanted to take that kind of solidarity and trust for granted. Both of his friends were ready when he drew the pirogue next to the dock in the deepest shadows of the cypress trees lining the waters.

  Ezekiel stepped off first, staying low to prevent sky-lining himself just in case anyone was watching. He tied up the boat fast and moved back into the shadows. Malichai followed, splitting off to make his way around to the back of the house. Wyatt pointed up toward Nonny's window, indicating to Ezekiel to go high. He was going straight in the front door.

  Once Ezekiel gained the balcony, Wyatt stepped out of the shadows and began to saunter up to the porch as if he didn't have a care in the world. There was no vehicle to indicate Larry and his friends had reached the house before him, but it was possible. Wyatt and the Fortunes brothers had lingered in the swamp to examine the tracks of the Rougarou. That might have given the guards enough time to get to his grand-mere's home. Still, Larry needed some tending, and the chances that his friends had taken care of him that fast were slim.

  Wyatt walked right up the stairs and pulled open the door to the sitting room. It was the one room Nonny kept formal - at least as formal as she was able to be with all her years in the bayou. It was their entertaining room. Nothing fancy, but their best. It was empty. He gave it a quick once-over. One of his gifts was his ability to see every detail in a single sweep of his gaze - the smallest detail registered. He was certain no intruder had been in this room.

  There was no sound in the house, almost as if the walls held their breath. He felt Ezekiel's entrance as well as Malichai's, one from above and one from the back of the house. Both were absolutely silent, but their presence sent a small shimmer of awareness through the old wood and he felt it.

  Wyatt inhaled and instantly smelled blood. His heart stuttered and he forced himself under control, but fear for his grandmother took hold. He breathed it away, and kept his body loose, palming his knife, laying the blade up along his wrist out of sight. He strode into the parlor, knowing his grandmother was in there and she wasn't alone.

  He stopped abruptly in the doorway. His grandmother's tiny body shielded someone else. There was an arm curved around her neck and the hand held a knife. Bowls of water were lined up on the small coffee table he'd made for Nonny himself. Three bowls. All hand-painted by Nonny's mother and cherished by the entire family. One bowl was still steaming, which meant they'd used extremely hot water. The water was bloody. There was a cloth in the second bowl of water. The third held plants mixed into medicine.

  "What the hell's goin' on in here, Nonny?" he demanded, shifting a few inches to get a better angle on his grandmother's assailant. Nonny was small, so whoever was using her as a shield wasn't any bigger.

  Something else moved in the room. On the pile of blankets in the corner. His heart jumped. His breath caught in his lungs. A child sat up, a small girl with a mop of dark, wavy hair, thick, but not long, curled in little whorls all over her head. She couldn't have been much more than a year, two at the very most. One little arm was bandaged, and he recognized his grandmother's work.

  "Nothin' wrong here, Wyatt. Don' be worried about me. I'm jist helpin' out some friends."

  Nonny didn't move a muscle. Neither did the knife. A shiver of awareness went through him. Most GhostWalkers could feel one another. Psychic energy surrounded them and immediately identified them to one another, although there were a rare few whose psychic energy was so contained the others couldn't feel them. Those same individuals could shield the teams from everyone else as well.

  His heart jumped hard in his chest and suspicion mounted. That knife never wavered, not one inch, and whoever held it was just that little bit too still to be a normal human being. He let out his breath slowly. Nonny didn't appear to be afraid, but if this was the Rougarou that had moved with astonishing, blurring speed, he wasn't happy about her being in his home.

  "I'm not okay with the knife. I'm not goin' to hurt anyone, but I can't abide someone holdin' a knife to Grand-mere's throat. If you want to get out of this room alive, put it down and back off," Wyatt said. "I'm damn tired of people threatenin' Nonny."

  He was too. Damn tired of it. The floor beneath his feet trembled. The walls expanded and contracted. The light overhead swayed.
The child's eyes grew large and round. She looked to the one standing behind his grandmother.

  "I can take down the house. You're fast. I know you're fast, but you're not goin' to be able to save the kid. You take somethin' of mine, lady, and I'm gonna take somethin' you love."

  The scent, not the blood scent, but the other, the one he'd smelled in the swamp was getting to him. Flooding his lungs. Doing something to the chemistry of his body, so that he felt alive in every cell, with every breath. He told himself it was adrenaline, but he knew it was far more than that, and it was dangerous. Just the beckoning, exotic scent of her, like a mixture of jasmine and silken sheets.

  The little girl stood up, and the floor trembled, throwing her back to the ground. Behind Nonny, the woman gave a small cry and tossed the knife to the floor. His grandmother didn't move, but remained standing in front of the woman, clearly protecting her.

  "That was unnecessary, Wyatt. She wouldn't have hurt me. She was protectin' her child. Both of them were shot by the same men who pushed me down in the swamp. I'm of a mind to go huntin' them with my squirrel gun."

  He ignored the warning note in his grandmother's voice. She didn't know what she was dealing with. This was no ordinary woman and child. He couldn't feel the psychic energy, that was true, but they were both enhanced and that didn't bode well for anyone in the room - especially his grandmother.

  "Step out from behind Grand-mere. I want to see your hands."

  The room had settled. He kept an eye on the child. She was no ordinary toddler, that was for certain. She'd stayed too still. She hadn't made a sound, not even when the ground shook and she'd been frightened. Her reactions seemed more animal than human to him. She would be unpredictable and he wasn't dismissing the possibility that she was dangerous - not after seeing the reactions of the guards at the Wilson Plastics compound.

  The woman took one step to her right - toward the baby. She didn't look at the child, but he had the feeling she communicated with her. The woman was small, but she had all the curves a woman should have and then some. Her hair was thick and dark, like a pelt, woven into some intricate braid, but what was most unusual were the strange dark patterns stamped into the mass of nearly blue black hair.

  For one moment, his entire being focused wholly on her. His heart did a curious somersault and his cock stirred in spite of the circumstances. She was built for long, lazy nights on the bayou, and images of her naked and writhing beneath him came out of nowhere.

  Her eyes were unusual. Large. Framed with heavy black lashes. The color was difficult to define. One moment they looked normal to him, a deep nearly purple violet, nearly as rich as her hair, but there was a diamond ring around the dark center that spread through the darker color like a starburst. She was small, curvy and compact. Even from where he was standing, he could see the defined muscles in her slender arms and shapely legs - and he'd seen her run with a bullet wound in her.

  He hadn't been with a woman in a long time and he'd always been careful to stay away from the wild ones, because he knew himself. He was jealous and mean and wouldn't be able to keep his hands off them once he got started. He'd sworn off women and he had no heart. He was blaming the momentary lapse on the knife. Bayou men loved women with knives - at least those in his family.

  "How bad is it?" he asked, to break the tension and distract her - and himself. "And please don' grab the baby like you're thinkin' and dive out the window. I don' want to be fixin' the damn thing tonight, and Grand-mere would have my hide for scarin' you."

  Le Poivre, more simply called Pepper, tried not to stare at the mouthwatering man who had interrupted Nonny cleaning and binding their wounds. She had seen him in the swamp, just earlier, casually giving a guard a beating. He'd fascinated her with his fluid movement, the sheer savagery of his attack, the casual way he kept at the guard. He'd been breathtaking. Poetry in motion. Fascinating.

  He'd walked into his grandmother's parlor knowing she was there, but he'd entered with supreme confidence anyway. He dominated the room. Commanded it. She was used to men thinking they were in control, but none of those men had Nonny's grandson's command. Or his sheer sexual pull.

  Everything about him screamed sensuality, from his dark, wavy hair to his hooded, intense eyes and a mouth that told her he could kiss the socks off a woman. She knew a dangerous man when she saw one, and this one looked like an avenging angel. She wondered, for just one moment, how it would feel to have a man like that charging to her rescue as he so clearly was doing with his grandmother.

  He moved, a subtle almost imperceptible step, gliding just a little closer to the baby. Her baby. She needed to get to the child and run for it. Disappear into the swamp. No one would be able to get to them there. No one. Not even this man.

  Wyatt studied the beautiful face of the woman. She looked as if she'd stepped out of a picture frame. She didn't belong in the swamp, a bloody shoulder marring that perfect skin. The baby inched closer to the woman. He took another couple of steps toward his grandmother.

  Hold off comin' in, boys. Let me get this under control. His grandmother was still far too close to the woman and he'd seen her move. He didn't want Ezekiel and Malichai to spook her into doing anything stupid.

  I can feel the threat to you, Wyatt, Ezekiel said. That woman is dangerous and so is the kid.

  "I'm warnin' you now, ma'am," Wyatt said. "I'm not alone. I know you're fast, but you're wounded and so is the baby. You know what I am. I know you do. My two friends are like me, and there's no way we can't track you. I don' want to hurt you or the kid. I just want to talk for a minute."

  Wyatt took another step that successfully put him closer to the child, almost between them. The baby let out a small hissing sound, somewhere between a baby's cry and the hiss of a snake. The little toddler launched herself at him, running the couple of steps it took to the coffee table, leapt up on it and flung herself into the air.

  The woman gave a horrified cry. "No ne mordent pas, bebe, ne mordent pas." She threw herself between Wyatt and the child.

  The baby bit into the woman's arm, biting hard with her tiny baby teeth. At once she lifted her head, looking up at the woman with strange, too-old eyes - horrified at what she'd done. There were tears swimming in the baby's eyes, but she didn't cry aloud. She stayed perfectly still. Utterly still. For some reason, looking at the two of them broke Wyatt's heart.

  "Take the baby, please, Ms. Fontenot," the woman instructed calmly. Too calmly. "Ginger, you go with Grand-mere." Her tone changed to one of sternness. "You are not to bite for any reason, do you understand?"

  Wyatt heard the subtle change in the woman's breathing. He caught her arm, his heart pounding hard. "Wait, Nonny. Don' touch that child." He turned the woman's arm over and examined the wounds. "She's venomous, isn't she?"

  The woman nodded reluctantly. "She's just a baby. She doesn't mean to hurt anyone. She doesn't bite out of meanness. She was afraid." The woman stayed calm, although he felt her accelerated pulse. "Please allow your grandmother to hold her and comfort her. She knows what she did was wrong and she won't do it again."

  Wyatt glanced down at the child. Tears trickled down her face. It felt obscene to be looking at a baby who was so completely alone.

  "Her name is Ginger. She's only seventeen months old and her life has been hell. She's afraid of everyone but me. Please, please take care of her."

  "I'm not afraid, Wyatt," Nonny insisted. "Come here, baby." She held out her arms to the child.

  The woman leaned over to brush a kiss on the baby's forehead. "It's all right. Go with her, Ginger. They aren't going to hurt you. Remember, I told you about the nice lady who left us food and the blanket for you?" She lifted her head to look at Nonny, avoiding Wyatt's gaze. "She can't stay warm unless she's in the sun. You have to keep her warm."

  "No. Don' you touch that child, Nonny." Much to his consternation, his voice came out a snarling command. Fear could do that to one. He took a breath and tried again. "She's dangerous. Her bite is dang
erous. Trust me on this, Grand-mere, she's as dangerous as the snakes here in the bayou."

  Nonny made a single sound and all three pairs of eyes immediately went to her. He'd heard that sound a few times when he'd been a young boy, mainly when he was out of control and she was about to come down hard on him.

  "This is still my home, Wyatt Fontenot, and I still make my own decisions. Tha's a baby, and in this house, as long as I own it, we take care of the children. Snakes and alligators don' bother me. I'm not afraid of her. She's terrified. Can' you see that? Someone shot an enfant. Tha's who you should save your anger for."

  "I can' take the chance of you gettin' hurt, Nonny," Wyatt said, much quieter. He knew that tone, the set of her shoulders. She was not going to back down. He was fighting a losing battle.

  "It isn' your choice," Nonny said firmly. She held out her arms to the child. "Come here to me, Ginger. I'll keep you safe."

  The child looked to the woman, who nodded slowly.

  "I'll take good care of her," Nonny assured. "We're goin' to sit right here on the couch, wrapped in blankets, and Wyatt will take care of your mommy. He's a traiteur, baby. A very good one and he won't let your mama die."

  Wyatt had no choice. He went to the woman and helped her over to a chair. Retaining possession of her arm, he held it below her heart. "What's your name?" Raising his voice, he called out to his friend. "Ezekiel, I need clean soapy water. Warm, not hot."

  "Pepper. Just Pepper."

  Wyatt was astonished at how calm she was. The toxin was fast acting. Already her eyelids were drooping. She was showing signs of eye weakness, of facial paralysis. The venom was acting on her nervous system fast.

  "I'm a doctor. I can help you. Just stay calm. I want you to sit down slowly. We have to keep the wound below your heart. What venom? Which snake?" He already feared he knew.

  "Cobra." Pepper looked past him to Nonny. "Please, I don't have much time, although I won't die. I won't. Ginger, I'm going to be fine. It will hurt for a little while, I'll be sick, you know that, but I'll be fine tomorrow or the next day."

  "Don' tell her that if it's a cobra," Wyatt said.