Hunter of Shadows

by Nancy Gideon

  Brigit wrinkled her nose. “Nica. An odd name. What did you say it was? Monica? I’ll call her that. She won’t like it.”

  “This means everything to me, Bree.”

  Brigit could see it did, so she surrendered. “She’d better appreciate you, or she’ll have me to deal with.”

  “She’d be wise to worry.” Then he looked at the closed bedroom door. “What are the two of you going to do now?”

  “We’ll land on our feet. You’re not the only clever one in the family.”

  His cell rang, and he answered, “This is Mac.”

  “How soon can you get over here?” Charlotte asked.

  Twenty-two

  She got here about an hour ago, beat to shit, with the little kid in tow.”

  MacCreedy peered into the bedroom. A battered Lena Blutafino was curled up in the huge bed with her arms about a small boy. Both were deep in exhausted sleep. He shut the door quietly and followed Cee Cee to the living room.

  Things had changed since the last time he’d been in the apartment. It was an elegant work in progress with natural stone, deep, tranquil colors, and lush fabrics.

  Cee Cee gestured to a pair of overstuffed sofas in dark teal. “Coffee?”

  “Black, please.” He settled into the comfortable cushions. “Why did you call me?”

  “Max had to slip out quick. Alain picked him up. He’s going to stay with him.”

  A wry smile. “That’ll be pleasant for them.”

  Cee Cee appreciated his dark humor. “I couldn’t reach Nica. I thought maybe she was with you.”

  “No.”

  She brought him a big mug filled with a brew so strong, the chicory scent alone was an adrenaline rush. She noted his uneasy expression without comment. “You’re a bright guy, already on the inside with Manny. Alain trusts you and I’m inclined to agree with his judgment.”

  “Thanks. What do you need?”

  “Lena’s scared, and she should be. She wants to get out of town and disappear in exchange for later testimony. She doesn’t trust the system—especially the police.”

  “Smart girl,” he muttered.

  “She needs money.”

  “How much?”

  “A lot. She can’t touch her own accounts.”

  “We can’t go through the department. Can Savoie give her cash?”

  “Not from the grave.”

  “Ahh. I see the problem.” He thought for a moment, then glanced up at her with a gleam in his eyes. “I have an idea. I need to discuss it with Max first.”

  Cee Cee smiled and nodded. “I like you, Mac. You’re a good man to work with. I don’t want that to change.”

  His features stilled. “Are we getting away from business?”

  “Oh, it’s business. Personal business. Max told me about Rollo, and how his greed ripped the figurative guts out of your family.”

  Not a muscle in his face moved.

  “I’m glad the selfish bastard’s dead,” she continued, holding that fierce eye contact. “Max tells me the two of you are squared away. Is that how you see it, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re Tina’s half brother, Ozzy’s uncle. That almost makes us related.”

  A twitch of a smile, but she could tell he was still wary.

  “If you’re like Max, there’s nothing more important to you than family. Not your own personal agendas, not your own feelings.”

  “Where are you going with this, Charlotte?”

  “Why did Nica come back to New Orleans, Mac?”

  “She has a job here.”

  “Does that job involve killing Max?”

  “I don’t know. Really, I don’t.”

  “If it does, could you stop her?”

  “No.”

  “Would you try?”

  “Are you asking me where I’d stand?”

  “If a threat comes at Max I stand beside him, if not in front of him. I’m guessing that you feel the same about her.”

  His quiet growl threw the gloves off. “To my last heartbeat.”

  “If I have to go through you to stop her, I will.”

  “Understood.”

  Cee Cee leaned back on the adjacent couch with a sigh. “Well, this just sucks, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, it does.”

  Cee Cee drew out her ankle piece, the one she kept loaded with silver. He didn’t make a move as she placed it on the table between them.

  “I don’t want things to go down like this, Mac. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  He met her determined gaze. “I don’t, either. I want to make a home here with Nica. She has no choice in the things she’s doing.”

  “But you do, Mac.”

  “And I’d choose her every time. I want to work together to protect our family, Charlotte. She’s in trouble. I’m trying to help her, but I can’t do it alone.”

  “What do you need?” Right to the point.

  His grateful smile flickered. “Time. Don’t let Max force me to act in her defense, because I will.”

  “In return, I expect a warning if you can’t keep things under control.”

  He considered that carefully, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

  MacCreedy stepped out of the rain into the quiet interior of St. Bart’s. His footsteps echoed.

  “Detective MacCreedy. I’ve been expecting you.” The priest was sitting in the first pew.

  Silas slid into the one behind him. “You said you knew my mother.”

  “She was a lovely woman who adored your father and her children. She was willing to make any sacrifices for them.”

  “Including giving one of them up to you?”

  “Yes. It was an incredibly difficult decision for her to make, but with your father’s support, she was able to.”

  “And it killed them.”

  “I regret that.”

  “Was saving Tina worth their deaths to you?”

  Furness turned and placed a big hand on Silas’s shoulder. “Is that the question you came here to ask?”

  “If I protect the boy, it could cost me everything.”

  “Yes, it could. Is it that sacrifice that concerns you?”

  “I’ve given over twenty years of my life to protect my family, and if I do this, it could be for nothing.”

  “Where’s your faith?”

  Silas laughed angrily. “My faith died with my parents.”

  “Did it? Or was that when it was born?”

  “Don’t play games with me, Father. I don’t want to argue theology.”

  “Your father was a man of tremendous principles, as I believe you are. He saw things on a larger scale that made the more personal choices less difficult, but no less painful.”

  Silas took an anguished breath. “I will not let those I love suffer for some greater good. You know how I can save them. Tell me what I can do. Help me protect them.”

  That large hand pressed gently. “You have to let them go.”

  MacCreedy threw off his consoling grip. “No! I won’t.”

  “You have a different path now—one they can’t follow. Let them discover their own. Let them go. You can’t deny your fate.”

  “Fuck fate. I don’t believe in it any more than I believe in faith.”

  “Yes, you do.” Furness smiled at him, not offended and not deterred. “It’s brought you here, right where you need to be to do the things you must. You look like your father. He was a strong, decent man, determined to make the right choices. We had a similar discussion when he came to me with a broken heart because the child he thought was his had been fathered by another.”

  Struggling with fury and fear, Silas drew a calming breath. “What did you tell him?”

  “I reminded him of Joseph and his decision.”

  “My half sister’s conception was hardly immaculate. It was a rape of everything my mother believed in.”

  “I told him I had no answers for him. I told him they were already inside his soul.”

  Wit
h a curse, MacCreedy surged to his feet. “I’ve wasted my time here.”

  Furness caught his wrist, the one branded by the Terriots, and held tight. Unable to break free, MacCreedy glared down at the priest.

  “He didn’t need my answers,” Furness told him firmly. “He already knew them. He came to me for permission to take the path he’d already chosen. Isn’t that why you’re here, Silas? You don’t need my blessing any more than he did.”

  “But I love them.”

  “And the strength of that love will sustain them on their own journeys.”

  MacCreedy sank onto the padded seat, resting his forehead on the back of hands that clenched the pew back in front of him.

  “There’s a great darkness coming, Silas,” the priest told him. “You have your mother’s compassion, your father’s wisdom, and your own courage of conviction. Max will need you if the community here is to survive. You will be his Michael—his sword of justice, his edge of reason.”

  “And Nica,” he whispered roughly. “Am I supposed to let her go, too?”

  Furness’s hand clamped down on the back of his neck. Hard. “No. Her you keep close, as close as you can.”

  His gaze lifted, seeking answers.

  “You need each other, Silas. Keep her with you.”

  “I don’t know how to protect her.”

  “Yes, you do. Give her your strength. Earn her trust. I never could, and I’ve always regretted that. Don’t let darkness control her.”

  “Do you know who they are? Do you know how I can get her free of them?” He gripped the priest’s robes. “Do you know where I can find them?”

  That rough hand gently covered MacCreedy’s again. “Yes, and I will tell you. But first, you must save her from herself.”

  Nica paced the floor of her condo with restless energy, moving from room to room to keep the tension at bay.

  Stop fighting.

  She shook off the impatient voice echoing through her head. She wouldn’t listen. She wouldn’t give in.

  Go ahead and call him. You know you want to. Invite him over. I don’t mind.

  “Three’s a crowd, Hawthorne. Go get your kicks on the Internet.”

  The pain crested in a powerful wave, making her legs buckle. She stumbled but kept moving, staggering, leaning into the wall for balance. Don’t think of MacCreedy, she told herself. Don’t think of how much you want him. How much you need him.

  Call him, Nica. We could arrange a delightful greeting for him. Couldn’t we, darling?

  Images flashed through her mind, gruesome, vicious visions of what Hawthorne wanted done. Horrible things of which she knew she was capable.

  “Get out of my head, you bastard! I’m not calling him. I don’t need anyone. Let’s just keep it you and me, darlin’.” She smiled ferociously and swayed through the living room like a drunk. Keep moving, she reminded herself. Out distance the pain. Walk it off. Move through it.

  Her cell was on the table. It held MacCreedy’s messages. All she had to do was pick it up and she could hear his voice. A touch of one button would bring him to her side.

  So that she could kill him.

  Nica picked up her phone and flung it against the bricks, where it shattered into a satisfying number of pieces. Her wild, frantic laugh broke off at the sound of a knock at the door, and she froze.

  Another knock, more insistent.

  “Go away. Please,” she whispered.

  “Nica?”

  “Nooooo. Silas, please just go.”

  “Nica!” Pounding now.

  Had she remembered the dead bolt? The regular lock wouldn’t keep him out. Nica started toward the door, reeling, running, reaching for the disengaged lock just as the door swung inward. She saw the tremendous relief in his eyes at the sight of her; then she was in his arms.

  “Run,” she panted against his neck. “Not safe here. Run, Silas, now.”

  She pushed him away, sending him back into the hall. Before she could close the door he had his shoulder against it, shoving his way in. When she strode away from him toward the living room, she heard him click the lock into place.

  “What’s going on?”

  He was drenched from the downpour that beat against the skylight. His hair lay dark and sleek against his head. His shirt was plastered to the sculpted line of his body. He entered the living room and took in the phone debris, then he looked at her again, closely. Cautiously.

  “I got tired of hearing it ring. I didn’t want to talk to you. I don’t want you here. I’m not good company, MacCreedy.” She held his gaze, betraying nothing with her own.

  “I was worried,” he told her, coming nearer.

  She put up staying hands, gesturing low for him to keep away, conveying what she couldn’t in words. Because someone else was listening, watching through her eyes.

  “I’m fine. I really need you to go, right now.” Run! Silas, run!

  His scent rolled over her, blending with those harsh pulses of pain, becoming one and the same, one constant demand. He was the cause of her misery. He was bringing the ceaseless agony that wracked her body, along with the conflicts torturing heart and mind. There was only one way to end it. Only one way to make it stop.

  Nica turned away, pressing the heels of her hands against her temples, squeezing her eyes shut, but the message continued to stab through her head.

  Kill him. Do it now. Quickly, then it will end. Now, Nica! Save yourself. Save them!

  She whirled, tears on her cheeks, her nails lengthening into razor-sharp claws.

  But he’d moved swiftly, sidestepping her attack. MacCreedy caught her wrist, twisting with surprising force. His other hand clamped tight about her neck, driving her down onto her back in a body slam that knocked the breath from her. But only for a moment. She was sobbing now. She’d wanted it to be a quick, clean kill, as merciful for them both as she could make it, and now it was going to get messy.

  MacCreedy was astride her, pinning her arms and legs with the wrap of his own. His body mass doubled, the increased weight mashing her into the carpet, his expanding bulk ripping through the seams of his cotton T-shirt and jeans. The angles of his face altered, lengthening, stretching to accommodate the sharp teeth he bared. His eyes were on fire, bloodred and hot ice blue.

  Here was the raw male power and strength she’d only guessed at. He was the most fearsomely arousing thing she’d ever seen, because he could have slain her in an instant, but refrained.

  Something in the compelling brilliance of his gaze penetrated the fog of pain imprisoning her mind, scattering it like the blast of a gale-force wind. She gasped as he released one of her hands to clasp her jaw, stilling the thrash of her head with paralyzing pressure. His stare pierced hers like a surgical laser as he leaned closer to speak in a harsh, tearing snarl.

  “Let her go, you son of a bitch. This is my female and you will not take her from me.”

  All the torturous pain and pressure disappeared in an instant, the sudden shock leaving Nica astonished.

  My female.

  She made a soft, wondering sound, then gripped the back of MacCreedy’s neck for a savage kiss. Her claws ripped through what was left of his shirt as she rolled above him, never surrendering that fierce, biting, lapping kiss. He tore off her shirt, gripped the waistband of her jeans and rent them in half so he could possess her.

  The feel of him pounding so close to the heat of her became an unbearable frustration. She yanked down his zipper and murmured an impressed epithet as they stripped off the remainder of their clothing. Then he sat up, his arms circling her in a possessive crush as he kissed her mouth, her throat, her breasts with hungry determination.

  She gripped his wet hair, twining the new shaggy length of it in her fists, stilling him long enough to pant, “The bed?”

  “Here,” he growled. “I love this rug. I knew you were the only one for me from the first time you kissed me.”

  She leaned into his hard chest and even harder sex, rocking against him as her o
wn physiology changed, becoming his equal.

  His mouth was hot against her ear, her neck, her shoulder. Feeling her tense, he nuzzled her gently, whispering, “Are you ready for me?”

  “Make me yours, MacCreedy.”

  With his touch, his kisses he lavished attention to her shoulders, along her spine, until any trace of apprehension heated into anticipation. When he lifted her hips, she was wet and eager to receive him. But even prepared, she hadn’t expected the size of him, biting back a sharp cry as he breached her.

  MacCreedy immediately stilled, panting with the effort. He couldn’t bear to hurt her, yet he couldn’t bear to let her go. Nica solved the problem by easing him in slowly, steadily. Her slender figure shook and quivered.

  The feel of her around him was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Like he’d never known pleasure. His senses were so alive, they burned and tingled. Like the first time he saw her. The first time he recognized without comprehension that she was the one, the only one he would ever need to possess with this fierce, blinding urgency. To claim. To hold. Forever.

  With a throaty rumble of satisfaction, Nica began to rise and fall in time with his increasingly ragged breaths.

  Sensations, hot, primal, and glorious, swelled within her. Her eyes squeezed shut as a smile curved her parted lips because this was her man, her male, her mate taking this rough, wild ride with her.

  Tension gathered into a tight, pounding beat. Instinctively, Nica rolled her head so her hair slid away, baring the curve of her neck and shoulder for the hot graze of MacCreedy’s breath. Then his bite.

  Piercing pain streaked to the heart of her. Nica tried to pull away but she was held tight, caught between the strength of his jaws and length of his sex. He bit down harder, drawing at the wound where he’d marked her, plunging into her, and suddenly her entire reality changed.

  Nica’s senses exploded outward, dazzling her with such splendor that she cried out, then again as a fierce orgasm shook her to the soul. The strong jolts of pleasure sent shock waves through the dreamscape surrounding her.

  Unlike the nightmare Hawthorne sucked her into, this delighted her with strange flashes of light and snatches of sound as she spiraled through time and space and awareness. And Silas was with her, his scent stroking her like a caress, his panting breaths pulsing over her in a hot tide until the sudden force of his release sent her spinning on another giddy ride.