Chapter 18
The shattering sound of breaking glass ruptured the wild quiet of the bayou.
“Son of a bitch,” Peter hissed from his position by the fountain. Crouching low, he ran at full speed toward the house. Out of nowhere, Joseph Vasullus appeared in the open doorway. Peter skidded to a halt at the bottom of the porch steps as gravel spit out from under his feet. He aimed his gun directly at Joseph’s tie-dyed-clad chest. He may have been well into his sixties, but he still looked damn strong. Pete had to admit he cut a pretty imposing figure, old or not.
“Don’t move, you squirrelly bastard, or I’ll shoot you where you stand,” he said in a deadly voice. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his back. Peter eyed the wooden-handled shotgun, which dangled in the old guy’s hand unthreateningly. If Joseph had wanted to shoot him, he could’ve done it before Pete had even seen him.
Joseph slowly placed one finger to his lips. “Shhh.” He made a nodding motion toward the upstairs. Pete’s brow furrowed with confusion. He opened his mouth, but the earth-shattering roar of a big cat interrupted the standoff. Pete took the steps in one leap, but Joseph refused to move.
“Get out of my way, old man. You have no idea who or what is up there,” he said, trying to push past him.
With surprising strength and speed, Joseph shoved him against the wall next to the door. He held him there with one strong arm, preventing Pete from moving. Pete looked up and found himself staring into the bright yellow eyes of a cat. For a second, his thoughts went to that stupid black cat that Jacqueline always carried around, but it was pretty clear that Joseph was no house pet.
“Unfortunately, boy, I know exactly what is up there,” he said quietly.
Pete nodded his head in slow disbelief. “Crap. Are you going to turn into a bird or something too?”
“No,” Joseph whispered and cast a quick glance toward the inside of the house. He stepped back and released Peter. “I don’t have time to explain. Go around the back of the house. There’s a balcony outside the room they’re in. I need you to climb up there. I’m too damn old and tired to go scaling walls. We’ll have a better chance of getting them out of there if we cover the front and the back.”
Joseph pulled a worn envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it to Peter. “Here, take this. You give that to Kerry when this is all over.”
Peter took the mysterious missive and slipped it into his pants pocket. He looked into Joseph’s now human eyes and found them tinged with sadness. Pete had no idea what the hell was going on or what exactly these people were, but it became quite clear that Joseph was an ally.
“Normally, I’d argue with you, but the freaky-ass thing you just did with your eyes was all the convincing I needed.”
The lines in Joseph’s forehead deepened, and confusion flickered briefly over his face. “Whatever. Get going,” he rasped.
Pete gave a quick nod, and as quietly as possible, headed around the right of the house. He crept slowly along the paint-chipped side and peered carefully around the corner. He looked up and saw the balcony Joseph was talking about. Soft light flickered in the window, confirming he was in the right place. He scanned the sky and didn’t see any sign of that bird guy, William. Maybe he was waiting for him on the balcony? His jaw clenched, and he threw a quick glance to the sky. No time to wait around and find out.
A snarl of vines and ivy crawled all the way up the weatherworn clapboard of the mansion. The mass of greens had grown unchecked for years, and it seemed they had become a permanent part of the structure. It also created a natural ladder. Pete tugged on the thick blanket nature had provided and tested its strength. Satisfied, or at least hoping that it would hold his weight, he holstered his gun and grabbed a fistful of the bulky vines.
“Like rock climbing at the gym,” he mumbled under his breath.
Just as he was about to begin his climb, a faint rustling to his left caught his attention. He pulled his gun back out, stilled and waited. The rustling emanated again from the back of the house, but this time was accompanied by the faint screech of a bird. Shit. Birdbrain? He glanced back to the light above him. He had to get up there, but if this bird guy was hurt, then they’d be down a man and quickly becoming outnumbered.
Peter inched his way to the corner and held the cool steel gun tightly against his chest. He peered slowly around the back and swore softly at the sight before him. William, still in his gyrfalcon form, lay on the ground with a massive knife sticking out of his chest.
Peter, crouching low, ran silently to the wounded, feathered beast. As soon as William saw Peter, he tried to stand and steady himself, furiously flapping his uninjured wing. He stumbled, lost his footing, and squawked weakly as he landed again on his side. Blood stained the white feathers and seeped from the wound where the knife remained.
Peter shoved his gun back in the holster and ran a hand over his face. “Great. I get to be a fucking vet.”
William’s curt voice sliced into Peter’s mind with the same cold precision as the knife in his chest. If you would be so kind as to remove the knife, I believe I have enough strength to shift. His voice wavered, revealing the severity of his wounds. It will be easier to heal and slow the bleeding in my human form.
Peter shook his head, and his mouth fell open. “Holy shit,” he said in almost reverent tones. “I’ll do anything you want, if you just promise me you’ll get out of my head.”
He stared down at the wounded animal with something that resembled awe and even respect. This arrogant shapeshifter needed his help, and Pete knew that he’d swallowed a big serving of pride to ask for it. Giving a quick nod of agreement, Peter placed one hand on William’s chest and marveled at how unbelievably silky the feathers were. Warm and soft were not words anyone would use to describe this guy, he thought wryly.
Pete took hold of the leather-handled dagger and looked into William’s glowing black eyes. “Ready?”
Do it, William shot back.
Peter, his mouth set in a grim line, took a deep breath and pulled the steel blade from his feathered chest. Blood immediately poured from the wound, and for a moment, he thought that he’d made a mistake. A split second later the bird shimmered, and static electricity surrounded them. Peter scrambled to his feet and stepped backward, needing to put some space between himself and the situation. By the time he was on his feet, the bird had become a man. Pete secured the knife in his belt and shook his head in disbelief.
“Dante has got a lot of damn explaining to do,” he mumbled.
William, his suit dirty, bloodied, and torn, immediately placed his right hand over the bleeding wound in his chest. His long hair had come loose and fallen over his face. He looked up at Peter through his dark brown human eyes and gave him something that resembled a smile. “Thank you,” he grunted.
“I bet saying that hurt more than getting stabbed,” Pete said as he squatted to look at the wound.
“You have no idea,” William murmured. He grabbed Peter’s wrist and pushed him away. “I’ll be fine, but unfortunately, I’m not going to be much use to you for the moment. I’ve lost quite a lot of blood, and I am uncharacteristically weak.” His face twisted in pain, and he gave a fleeting look to the balcony. “You have to get up there. They need your help more than I do. The woman, Pasha, has at least two guns. She is Amoveo of the Tiger Clan—they are vicious and fierce fighters.”
“Tiger? Shit, it’s like a fuckin’ circus up there.” He sighed. “What else?”
“There’s a human with her. A young male.” He grunted, and pain flickered over his pale face. “I don’t think he’ll cause you much trouble.”
“You’re the boss.” He gave William a pat on his good side and turned quickly to the house. Pete grabbed fistfuls of the vines and made his way silently and swiftly up to the balcony.
***
Joseph broke into a cold sweat the moment he set foot in the house. He hadn’t been inside it for almost thirty years. When Jacqueline showed up
at the square completely hysterical, he knew something was wrong. She came to him babbling that they hadn’t shown up at her house, and they weren’t at the hotel. He shook his head. There was always some kind of drama with that girl. At her behest, he went to the hotel in search of Kerry and Dante. The girl at the desk had been easily intimidated into telling him he saw Dante leaving with another man. She hadn’t seen Ms. Smithson all evening. He knew they’d been lured here. It made sense.
This was where it all began.
Joseph crossed the large foyer and looked at himself in the antique mirror. A wry smile formed on his lips, and he shook his head at the wrinkled man looking at him. The eyes that stared back were surrounded by crow’s feet and quite human. He’d been almost as startled as Peter when they’d shifted. He hadn’t been able to do that or use any of his other Amoveo abilities for over twenty-five years. After he’d lost his mate, he became Vasullus.
For all intents and purposes, he’d become human.
Joseph placed the shotgun on the table in front of the mirror. The last thing he wanted to do was go in with guns blazing. He knew he had to keep the situation as calm as possible, and he figured that by going in as a harmless old man, it would buy him more time than someone wielding a gun. He climbed the steps quickly and noiselessly. Joseph moved silently down the hallway and paused just outside the door of what used to be his master bedroom—their bedroom. A sad smile formed at his lips as he allowed memories to flood his mind. Her long dark hair and smiling brown eyes were the most vivid. Even after so many years, he could still picture her vibrant beauty.
A sick, twisted laugh interrupted his walk through time. Joseph’s face went dark at the sound of her voice—Pasha Zankoff. He should’ve known that bitch was one of the Purists. She had always hated him and made no secret about it. He’d never been certain if she’d gotten wind of who he really was—or who he had been—but he’d always had his suspicions. She always looked at him with contempt.
“Come on in, kitten” she called. “I knew you’d show up.”
Joseph stepped tentatively into the doorway with his arms raised in a sign of surrender. Pasha stood in the midst of the bedroom surrounded by several caged Amoveo. She was clad in skintight black from head to toe. No one would deny she was smoking hot, but she was also one crazy-ass bitch. A young human boy he didn’t know stood nervously next to her. Caedo maybe? Pasha had a gun pointed at Joseph and a satisfied smile on her face.
“Hello Pasha,” he seethed. “Who’s your friend?” He flicked a glance at the frightened kid.
“This is Brent. He’s become something of a pet of mine.” She ran one red fingernail down the side of his pale face. “I needed someone to help me, you see. He worked at the hotel the freak was staying in.” Her voice was thick with disgust. “He’s weak, which is so typical of humans, and easily intimidated.” She shrugged.
Brent cowered, and his lips quivered. “Please. You said that once I helped you, you’d tell me where my girlfriend is. You didn’t say anything about killing anyone or turning people into animals.” Tears filled his eyes, and he crossed his own tightly over his pudgy chest. “This is crazy,” he whispered with wild eyes. “I just want to get Penelope and go home.” His voice shook and bordered on hysteria.
Pasha grabbed him by the back of the neck without taking her eyes or the gun off of Joseph. The boy whimpered pathetically and squeezed his eyes shut. “Poor baby,” she taunted cruelly. “I just want Penelope.” Pasha made a sound of disgust and shoved him away from her. The boy stumbled and fell into a sobbing heap on the floor. “You’ll get her back when I finish what I need to do here.” Pasha’s green eyes narrowed. “Stay.” She pointed at him as if he were a dog. The boy obeyed.
Joseph, hands still in the air, kept his dark gray eyes on Pasha. “So, what’s the deal exactly? To be more specific, Pasha, what’s your deal?” His gaze flicked around the room at the various cages and stopped at Boris. “You even caged your brother.” He scoffed loudly. “What. A. Bitch.”
Pasha kept her gun on Joseph and wandered over to Boris’s cage. As she got closer, one large clawed paw swiped through the bars in a futile attempt to grab her. She merely hopped out of reach and laughed. Boris snarled, and a baritone growl rumbled through the room.
“I gave him the opportunity to help me. I thought he would be loyal to our people and want to keep our race pure. To keep more abominations like these two from being born,” she said with a nod toward Kerry and Samantha. Their hackles raised, the two growled and snarled in response.
“When my brother confirmed he was indeed… pathetic,” she spat toward Boris, “I had to find another helper. I tried to get Steven’s help, but all he wanted to do was get in my pants. Sorry. Not my mate and not interested,” she seethed. “Since he wasn’t going to be any help at all, I decided to try the binding powder on him first.” She giggled and leaned toward Malcolm, who still sat blinded on his perch, and lowered her voice to a whisper as though she was telling him a delightful secret. “And you know what? It worked.”
Malcolm made a loud squawking sound and flapped his wings furiously, but to no avail. Joseph knew that he was never going to get out of those restraints on his own. None of them would. He glanced at the broken window on doors to the terrace. No sign of that Peter guy. Shit. Joseph looked at Brent, and his shoulders sagged with some defeat. If this kid was their only hope for help, then they were all in big trouble.
Pasha’s voice snapped his attention back to her. “Bet you’re wondering where horny Steven is?”
“Not really.” Joseph shrugged. The less emotion he showed her, the better. “He doesn’t mean a thing to me.”
She stuck out her bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. “Oh, come on. You’re no fun at all.” She waved the gun at him and placed the other hand on her hip. “Well, I decided that he was such a dirty dog, he deserved to be with other dirty dogs.” A slow smile cracked her harsh features. “Coyotes can be such nasty creatures. I sent him to a wild animal preserve.” She giggled, but the smile faded quickly. “He’ll get to see how it feels to be treated like a piece of meat.”
“That’s just mean.” Joseph laughed. “I guess the preserve keepers will have quite a surprise in a few weeks when some strange guy wakes up in their habitat.”
Pasha smirked and puffed her chest with pride. “Yes.” She sighed, and a frown formed on her full red lips. “I should’ve put it in his drink. Then he would’ve been bound forever.” She shrugged one slim shoulder. “Oh well. Live and learn.” Her face relaxed when she looked over at Brent, who still sat shaking pathetically on the ground. “This human ended up being very helpful in getting all of the players in place for our little get together. He did need some convincing though. Hence, the whole ‘give me my girlfriend back’ thing,” she said with a roll of her eyes.
“Please,” Brent sputtered pathetically through a strained voice. “Please let me go, and tell me where she is.”
“All in good time, my boy.”
Joseph tracked Pasha as she sashayed nonchalantly over and stood between Kerry and Dante’s prisons.
“As you can see, we’ve got several of the traitors, or would-be traitors, in my brother’s case, and now I’m going to dispose of them.” She turned her emerald green eyes on Joseph. “You are one of the original traitors. You are responsible for this,” she said. Every word dripped with disgust as she looked down at Kerry. “You were a top-ranking member of the Panther Clan, and you threw it all away to be with a human.” Pasha sneered.
She said “human” as if it were the lowest form of life.
“You, Lucas, and the others all disregarded our laws for your own pleasure,” she shouted. Her anger filled the room, and the candles flickered in response. “Because of you, your friends, and all of your disgusting offspring, he didn’t see me in the dream realm.” She gestured toward Dante. Her eyes grew wild, shifted, and glowed bright orange.
Joseph’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows flew up, and he flicked his gaze to Da
nte. The large red fox sat there with a look of shock and confusion on his white-masked face. If they weren’t in such a dangerous situation, Joseph probably would’ve laughed out loud at the look on Dante’s face.
“I called to him time and again, but he ignored me. Year, after year, after year! He never acknowledged me in the dream realm. Me? A pure-blooded Amoveo female,” she pontificated. Disgust and rage dripped from every word and punctuated each syllable. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to know that your mate has chosen a birth defect over you?”
Joseph looked at Kerry, who stirred restlessly in her cage as she listened. Her long black tail twitched impatiently behind her, and her bright yellow eyes were locked intently on Joseph. He had to do something. He had to get his daughter out of there.
It was time to shake things up.
He glared at Pasha. “I bet you think you’re pretty clever, don’t you? Typical Amoveo arrogance.” He flicked a quick glance toward the Wolf and Eagle. “Let me guess,” he said in the most condescending tone he could muster. “You’ve been to see old Beaumont down in the Quarter. Buy the binding spell from him by any chance?” A look of shock flickered across Pasha’s face, and he laughed. “Don’t you think that I, of all people, would want to know how to bind a shifter?”
Brent held the glass bottle out in a shaking hand. “Please take this. I don’t want anything else to do with this stuff. I just want—”
“Penelope back,” Pasha finished for him.
Brent shrank from her and almost dropped the expensive powder.
“Be careful with that, you idiot,” she spat.
“You gonna let her talk to you like that, kid?” Joseph taunted. He hoped that maybe he could get the boy to muster up some courage out of peer pressure. He glanced at the gun Pasha had left on the chair, hoping that the boy would get the point and use it on Pasha. “Jeez, grow a set. Would ya? Some boyfriend you are.” He shook his head and grunted his disapproval. “Penelope better not count on you for any damn help.”
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