Lilly stood just behind him as he opened the door with BARTEL & JACKSON painted on the glass. Lined with oak filing cabinets and bookcases crammed with volume after volume of leather-bound books, his brother’s office smelled of lemon and beeswax wood polish, leather, paper, and the faint, sour, chalky scent of india ink. Colt reconsidered giving Ma’s diary to Remington, especially given he didn’t trust the current company.
Tilted back in the secretary’s chair at an oak desk in the center of the room sat a buxom blonde. Dressed in a pale brown, fringed leather jacket, a faded blue button-down chambray shirt that stretched tight across her chest, and skintight brown leather buckskin pants, she had her dirty cowboy boots propped up on the desktop.
Whoever the woman was, she clearly had no respect for other people’s possessions, Lilly thought.
“Hello, Colt. It’s been a while.” The way she purred the words made every hair on Lilly’s body stand up in agitation.
Colt grunted with a curt nod, but Lilly noted his gaze didn’t linger long and instead darted to the open doorway behind the desk. Through it stepped a man almost the mirror image of Colt, all except for the deep cleft in his chin, the shorter haircut, and the well-tailored gentleman’s coat over a crisp white shirt with a red paisley vest. A small black ribbon was tied at his neck and matched his fancy black pin-striped pants.
“Did I just hear you say—” His blue eyes widened along with his mouth into a giant heart-stopping smile. “Hey, little brother!” He rushed forward and swung his arms around Colt in a bear hug that knocked a huff out of Colt. “Good to see you. Especially all in one piece.”
Lilly tried to stifle her grin. She had a hard time thinking of Colt as needing to be protected by anyone.
Colt pulled out of his brother’s arms. “Good to see you too, Remy.” His gaze shifted over to the woman at the desk. “See you’ve got China working with you.” Lilly noticed how his shoulders stiffened and how he deliberately avoided eye contact with the woman as if she made him distinctly uncomfortable. Considering how her gaze seemed to track his every move, as if he were a rodent to be toyed with, his attitude was understandable. Lilly didn’t like the sneaky little smile playing on the other woman’s mouth or the way she kept glancing from one brother to the other as if waiting for fisticuffs to start.
“Yep. Got her out of the Bisbee jail, no thanks to you.” Remington nudged his brother with his elbow, but his face went soft and his blue eyes out of focus as his gaze settled on Lilly, warming her to her toes. “And who is this charming young lady? Certainly you’ll introduce us.”
Colt glanced back over his shoulder, his brows knitting together slightly in the center and his jaw flexing as if he’d rather do anything but that. “This is Miss Lilly Arliss. Lilly, my brother Remington and Miss China McGee. Lilly’s helping me find Pa’s part of the Book.”
Remington pushed past his brother, purposely knocking him aside with his shoulder. He bowed slightly from the waist, never taking his eyes off hers, and lightly grasped her hand in his smooth one, brushing a warm kiss over her knuckles. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Arliss.” He continued to hold her hand a moment longer than propriety demanded. The air crackled with challenge between the Jackson boys.
Lilly felt her cheeks warm with a blush. There was no doubt that the brothers owned charm in spades. Colt quickly wedged himself between them, breaking Remington’s hold on her hand.
“I didn’t haul us all over God’s creation to watch you kissing hands and sweet-talking ladies. Pa didn’t leave pages. He left a riddle. The kind of thing you’re so good at. Need you to solve it so I can go find what we’re looking for and not waste any more time.”
Remington turned toward his brother. “You didn’t find his piece of the Book?”
Colt shook his head slowly, his jaw tight. “Nothing in the damn box but a scrap of paper with a riddle written in Navaho.”
“You don’t speak Navaho, let alone read it. For that matter, neither do I.”
“Yeah. But Balmora apparently does.”
“Balmora? You mean Marley’s analytical decoder machine? You saw it?”
Colt’s lips twitched. Lilly lifted her fingers to her own mouth, which tingled at the thought of how warm and firm his sculpted mouth had been when he’d kissed her. “I think he’s going to have a hard time letting her go to the Queen, when the time comes.”
“Her?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now, can you make heads or tails of what Pa meant?”
Colt fished the page Balmora had spat out from his pocket and unfolded it, handing it to his brother.
Remington scanned the page, his lips moving as he read to himself. Remington had an equally appealing mouth, she thought. But he wasn’t Colt. Colt somehow seemed darker, more powerful in an elemental way, than his more refined brother. She didn’t know if it was the way his dark hair curled over his collar and ragged bits of it shaded his eyes or simply the powerful build of his shoulders.
Remington brushed his fingers back through his short dark hair. “Well, the first part is pretty straightforward. We’re going to need the whole damn Book of Legend to close the Gates of Nyx.”
“I figured out that part myself, thanks,” Colt said sarcastically. Lilly stepped lightly around the office, running her fingers over the fine leather volumes in Remington’s library, as the brothers leaned over the desk deciphering the riddle.
She cast a cautious glance beneath her lashes at the other supernatural in the room. She was surprised the Jackson brothers were so openly discussing matters in front of her, but perhaps the shifter already knew more about their search than she did.
China shared the same wildness about her that Colt possessed. Perhaps it was the predatory nature in both shifter and Hunter. Her long, honey-colored hair lay in careless abandon over her shoulders and halfway down her back and she was leaning forward, her elbows on her knees, feet braced wide apart like a man’s. Her keen gray eyes darted from one Jackson brother to the other in front of her, as if they were tea cakes and she was deciding which she’d like to eat first.
The skin on Lilly’s face tightened with heat and anger. I think not. For a moment she contemplated turning on her full charms as a succubus just to prove to the shifter that she could draw Colt’s attention back to her with next to no effort. China’s silver gaze locked onto hers as if she’d heard Lilly’s thought. Lilly sucked in a quick breath, then lifted her chin and avoided her direct stare as she continued to inspect the books.
“At the height of the mountains, where legends are born and reborn from the ashes ... Phoenix birds are reborn out of ashes,” Remington murmured. “Legends—another word for myths and superstitions. It could be the Superstition Mountains outside of Phoenix.”
“What about the eye part?” Colt pressed his fisted hand to the top of the desk. His shoulders and arms were so tense Lilly could see the ripple of muscle as he moved.
“Alone it doesn’t make any sense, but see where it says sew and tapestry in the rest of the line?”
“Yeah?”
“Ever heard of the Lost Dutchman Gold Mine story going around?”
Colt snorted. “Who hasn’t?”
Lilly glanced back at the men and saw that China had moved. She was out of the chair and standing awfully close to Colt, her hand resting on Remington’s shoulder. She seemed to sense Lilly’s stare and locked gazes with her, her lips turning into a self-assured smirk as she gave her a silent message through her eyes. Mine. Back off.
“Well, legend has it Jacob Waltz used the rocks called the Eye of the Needle and Weaver’s Needle as landmarks to the mine,” Remington said.
“So you think Pa was in cahoots with Waltz?”
Remington turned away to face the windows and shrugged his broad shoulders. Even in his expensive suit, he didn’t look half as handsome as Colt, and that was saying something, but if China thought she was going to get her hooks into Colt, she had another thing to consider.
“Maybe. Maybe no
t. Point is that if you were looking at those mountains or Phoenix, I’d think the Eye of the Needle is the place to start.”
“You’re leaving something out,” Lilly interrupted. She deliberately strode up to Colt, placing her hand on the broad expanse of his back, and leaned between the brothers, pointing to the paper they were looking at. Nearly in unison both brothers turned their identical blue gazes to her amply displayed charms. Colt’s eyes widened a bit and he swallowed hard, while Remington colored slightly. Colt cleared his throat and gave Lilly a heated look that made her stomach quiver.
Remington’s intense regard didn’t make Lilly’s heartbeat speed up, so she focused on him as she said confidently, “You missed the last two words.” She leaned her shoulder into Remington and threw a “take that” glance at China. The shifter’s eyes flashed silver, then narrowed as she spun away on her boot heel.
“Chosen destiny,” Colt grumbled, crossing his arms. “So what? Means we get to choose how it all turns out by our actions.”
She tilted her chin up. “No. ‘Chosen’ is capitalized.”
“Yeah, so?”
Lilly grasped hold of Colt’s arm, letting her fingers skim over the hard curve of muscle there. “Do you really think your father would have done that if he didn’t mean you three boys? You are the Chosen.”
Colt pulled away from her touch and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, come on, Lilly, don’t start up with that again.”
Remington chuckled. “I hate to say she has a point, but perhaps she does.”
“It’s your destiny to reunite the Book of Legend, and all of the Darkin know it.”
Colt cast a glance at Remington. “I’ve got something you need to see.”
“More important than the clue?”
“Could be.”
“Well, let’s have it, then.”
Colt pulled a worn leather journal from his pack and handed it to his brother.
“What’s this?”
“Ma’s diary. Had it with me all this time. There’s clues in there, like the one I found about Diego’s map. Things that Pa should have told all of us, but didn’t. Soon as you can, read it.”
Behind the three of them came the clearing of a throat and the tap of a boot against the wooden floorboards. “Excuse me, hate to break up this little tea party, but didn’t you say you’d need to reunite the whole Book of Legend?”
They turned and looked at China. “That clue you got out of the safety-deposit box. That’s to a map that leads to one of the pieces, isn’t it?” She shifted her piercing pale gray eyes between Remington and Colt.
The brothers glanced at each other. Something passed between them, though neither spoke, before they turned, united, back to China. Colt shrugged. “Could be.”
China threw up her hands and growled. “Great. A bunch of idiot Hunters out to save the world and it ‘could’ be the key to the next piece. You know, it’s a wonder that we didn’t both get caught in that last heist.”
Remington stepped over and leaned in closer to China. “I did tell you that I tend to be the brains of the family.”
China huffed, brushed the fall of her blond hair off her shoulder in irritation, and turned away from them. Both brothers gave a lingering look at the tight spread of leather over the shifter’s derrière. A simmering, annoying feeling swam in Lilly’s gut. A woman in pants, shifter or no, simply wasn’t decent, she decided. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
“Let me know when you actually want to do something about finding what you’re after, instead of just cackling about it like a bunch of old hens,” China threw back at them as she stared out the window.
“I think your analysis of the riddle was wonderful,” Lilly said to Remington, grasping his arm and finding it not nearly as thick as Colt’s beneath her fingers.
Remington turned back to her and gave her a sinful grin that made even a succubus take a second long look. “Thank you. Nice to know someone appreciates my efforts.”
“Oh, I’m glad you can make sense of it,” Colt said gruffly. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we still don’t have a single piece of the damn Book in our hands.”
“True.” Remington grasped and held the lapels of his long coat as if he were in court debating. “But we do have a good lead to the second piece. The clue in Diego’s safety-deposit box starts just outside Tombstone.”
Colt took off his Stetson and smoothed the edges of the firm felt brim between his fingers, then locked gazes with his brother. “We’re running out of time, Remy. I can’t go to Phoenix looking for Pa’s part of the Book and go on a hunt for the piece Diego heard about at the same time.”
Remington glanced over at China. “What if China and I were to go after it?” China shifted, cocking her head to listen in, but refusing to face the three of them.
“You’d do that?”
“I’d be willing to sacrifice a few weeks in the office for you if it meant saving the world,” he answered, his words laced with sarcasm.
Colt gave him a brotherly slap on the shoulder. “That’s mighty big of you, Rem.”
“Nobody asked me if I’d be willing,” China interrupted as she turned away from the window and strode slowly up to the brothers, positioning herself between the Jacksons and directly across from Lilly.
Lilly glared at her. Didn’t the shifter know when to back down? “Do you have any idea of what will happen if you don’t?”
China glared back. “The end of annoying Hunters?”
“How about the start of a new world order, featuring a sadistic archdemon lord at the helm?” Lilly volleyed back.
China stood up a little straighter and glared at Remington. “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
Remington put up his hands in defense. “I just found out, like the rest of them.” He jerked his head toward the window. “What the hell is that nois—?”
A mixture of screams, the whinny and galloping of spooked horses, and the thunderous crash of wood splintering came from the street outside the office. A shadow darkened the interior of the office. As one they ran to the windows.
Lilly had never seen anything like it. “What is that ... thing?” she demanded of Colt.
“It’s a dirigible, a class A, I’d guess from the size of it,” Remington answered over the din coming up from the street. The silver fabric skin of the giant dirigible, at least two hundred feet long and fifty feet across, glittered in the afternoon light as it descended over Allen Street, scattering the citizens and animals below.
“That better be good news,” Colt said as he whipped out his revolver and cocked the hammer back. “I’ve just about had my fill of bad news.”
“You ever seen that insignia before?” Remington pointed at the red castle turret bracketed by black bat wings emblazoned on the side of the dirigible.
“Nope. You?”
Remington shoved back the edge of his long coat and pulled his gun from his hip holster. “You packing silver?”
“Marley’s special bullets.”
Remington nodded. “Then let’s join the welcoming party, shall we?”
Lilly grasped Colt’s shoulder. “I’ve seen that insignia before. That’s vampire. European or Russian royalty.”
“You tellin’ me we got a vampire nobleman just deciding to drop in for a visit?” Colt grumbled.
China snickered, crossing her arms. “Since when would that be so strange for you two? You are Cy Jackson’s boys, after all.”
Lilly pointedly ignored her. “Based on the size of their dirigible, I’d say it’s either a very small vampire nobleman with a very big inferiority complex or an entire battalion of vampires.”
“Have any idea which royal house it might be?” Remington asked.
Lilly squinted in thought. “Could be Petrov, or the house of Drossenburg. Both have bat wings in their insignia.”
“Nothing like a little subtlety,” Colt muttered. He eyed Remington and knew his brother was thinking the same thing he was. Colt turned toward Lilly
and China. “You two stay put. We’re going to check this out.”
“And miss all the action? No, siree,” China spat back, her face hard with determination. In a flash her form began to change. It was like looking at a watercolor portrait that suddenly had water poured over it. Everything grew smudged and shapeless for a moment as the particles rearranged themselves into the form of a great golden mountain lion. The mountain lion roared, baring an impressive set of white canines, and everyone took a big step back.
Lilly was pressed against the wall, her smooth, silky skin a definite shade paler than normal. Maybe she’d never seen a shape-shifter like this before. Only a desk stood between the two of them, and the big golden beast began to pace Remington’s offices, its head bent low and ears pinned flat to its enormous head.
“If she wants to go out and greet the vampires, I think you ought to accommodate her,” Lilly offered, a tremor in her voice.
Colt grimaced. He’d seen China transmogrify enough times to no longer find it impressive. She was such a damn show-off. He pointed at the cougar. “Fine. Come along, but don’t attack unless they provoke. Got it?”
“We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with first,” Remington added. The big cat growled low and deep and blinked in acknowledgment.
“We’ll be right back,” Colt said to Lilly, then opened the office door.
“Unless there’s trouble,” Remington said with a smile, “then we’ll be back in about thirty minutes.”
Chapter 15
Colt cursed under his breath. Vampires. He hated vampires. They were too damn unpredictable and a bit too uppity for his taste. The only thing Colt did like about vampires was that they weren’t around fifty percent of the time. Through the leaded glass doors they could see the dark shadow of the dirigible on the street. A dark shadow meant the sun was at its zenith. No chance they’d be coming out, unless they were fully covered in protective clothing. So why park the thing smack dab over the center of town in broad daylight instead of waiting for dark? Clearly this wasn’t an attack.
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