Son of the Moonless Night (The Turning Stone Chronicles Book 3)

by C. D. Hersh

  He would spare his mother, only because he loved her and she had cared for Roc. The power from Roc’s Turning Stone ring, which he had forced his mother to give him, would be the instrument he would use to rid the world of shifters. When he was the last shifter standing, he would destroy the rings he’d collected, and the world would be safe.

  The door flew open, and Owen’s mother entered as Falhman tied off the last suture. “They told me you were hurt,” she said, rushing to his side. “What happened?”

  Grimacing, he eased his arm back into his borrowed sweatshirt sleeve and slipped off the mahogany desk Falhman used as an operating table. “I got in a scrape. It’s nothing.”

  “A nothing that requires stitches is something.”

  “Leave it be, Sylvia,” Falhman ordered.

  “He’s my son. I won’t.”

  “You may be my second in command, for the moment, but you are becoming a tiring, smothering woman,” he said. “Leave the man alone or I will have you removed.”

  Sylvia blanched white and clamped her mouth shut.

  “Sit, both of you,” Falhman instructed. “I’ve something to discuss.”

  They took seats opposite Falhman’s polished desk and waited while he steepled his long fingers together and stared at them.

  Sylvia squirmed in her chair, but Owen sat still. Moving made him woozy. Probably an effect of blood loss. He concentrated on Falhman, unblinking, and took a couple of deep, calming breaths. Over the past year he’d gotten used to the man’s aggressive power moves and figured out how to counter them. His mother, on the other hand, seemed to get more skittish around Falhman with each passing day. Not something Owen had ever expected from his power-hungry, driven parent.

  After a couple of seconds, she calmed down, but Owen could feel her tension as palpable as a noose around his neck. Reaching over he patted her hand. She rotated her palm up and entwined her fingers in his. His touch seemed to relax her, and she raised her gaze to Falhman’s.

  Finally, he spoke. “I’m acquiring some shipping businesses and I need an inside man. I’ve observed Owen’s progress during his first year as a shifter, and I think he’s ready to work for me.”

  Owen didn’t like the sound of that. Without any responsibilities to the shifter society he’d had plenty of free time to hunt Roc’s killers. Nothing besides learning how to use his ring had been required of him. Working for the rogue shifter kingpin would mean reporting and scraping and bowing to his wishes.

  “He hasn’t had a full year’s training yet,” Sylvia protested.

  “Yet, you trained him, my dear. He has Jordan blood in his veins, so I know his aptitude as a shifter is much higher than others you have trained. I have full confidence he’s ready. If he’s not, then I shall blame you. Besides, I want him. Now.”

  “For what?” Owen asked.

  “I need a spy in the WK shipping yard.”

  “Don’t you have more qualified men? A mimic perhaps. Not that I’m declining your offer,” he added hastily. That would be suicide.

  “You would be wise not to do so.”

  He didn’t miss the razor sharp edge in Falhman’s voice.

  “As for more qualified men-I don’t need an experienced, qualified shifter or a mimic.”

  “I’m a forensic scientist, not a spy.”

  “And that, my dear boy, is exactly why I need you. I’ve done some checking. I believe your knowledge of, chemicals, firearms, deconstruction and reconstruction of crime scenes, and all the other forensic areas you have dabbled in over the life of your career will prove invaluable to me in this next phase of the rogues’ search for peace in the world.”

  Sylvia rose from her chair. “You SOB. You’ve planned to use him like this all along. It’s why you kidnapped him, made Roc charm him so you could convert him to a rogue Turning Stone shifter to do your business.”

  “Sit, Mom.” Owen tugged on her arm urging her down. Angering Falhman wouldn’t help.

  “You’re a shifter because Roc hypnotized you and made you love all things rogue.”

  “When Roc died, Owen didn’t leave, my dear. He stayed.”

  Owen faced his mother. “Because I wanted to. Roc has nothing to do with my choice.”

  “Beyond revenge,” Sylvia said.

  “Which he will not take,” Falhman said with a meaningful glance at Owen. “Revenge is mine.”

  Saith the lord of the rogues. Falhman’s near quote from the Bible caused Owen to snicker inwardly. The man thought himself god of the rogues, when he was no better than the mimics he used to kill and wreak havoc. Owen took a full minute to contemplate the leader of the rogue shifters before nodding false acquiescence to his order. It didn’t matter what Falhman wanted. Revenge belongs to me.

  Turning back to his mother, he said, “You taught me not to go into anything unless my full heart was in it. I’m in, Mom, and I’m going to stay.” Until I’ve rid the world of shifters.

  “What do you need me to do?” he asked Falhman.

  Chapter 2

  He had lied.

  When Kat returned home, her guest and the afghan her grandmother crocheted her were gone. A quick check of the apartment revealed her favorite Cleveland Browns hoodie had disappeared, too. Her visitor had cleared the apartment of any evidence. The sweatshirt she could replace but not the heirloom afghan. Gone, she feared, forever. Criminals didn’t usually return to the scene of the crime with cleaned, stolen items.

  She stored the bandages in the medicine cabinet and heated her pizza, telling herself her unnamed patient’s leaving was for the best. She didn’t know him, and he didn’t know her. Culpable deniability. A win-win situation. Except for the dead guy in the alley.

  Still, she wanted to know more about the injured man. Why he killed a shifter. She’d only know that if she could question him. Questioning him would put her close enough to touch him again. She remembered the overwhelming urge to caress his face. Had he felt something?

  A tingle of anticipation ran through her at the thought of seeing him again. She slammed it down. He didn’t appear paranormal, but he was certainly involved.

  Ever since she began hunting paranormals her love life had gone down the tubes. Well, not exactly. She’d had lots of boyfriends. Passionate. Sexy. Inhuman boyfriends. She was done with men like that. She wanted normal with an ivy-covered, fairy-tale cottage house, surrounded by a white picket fence and roses growing on the trellis over the gate. No more stalking around in the dark hunting things that went bump in the night. No more fearing a vampire would squeeze through a cracked, open window and turn her. No more setting wards around the bed to keep the succubae and ghosts and werewolves and living dead away. She wanted to live in the sunshine. If she quit hunting them, maybe they’d leave her alone.

  Good for you, her mother said when she’d announced her departure from her father’s paranormal hunting company. But Dad retorted, Once a hunter, always a hunter.

  Their words warred within her. “Ugh!” she grunted. “Get out of my head, the both of you!”

  She dialed the coroner’s office where she worked ever since leaving the FBI. Last year FBI agent Delaney Ramsey called her to Cleveland to help with the investigation into Delaney’s daughter’s disappearance. She liked the precinct so well that when a job opening had come up she applied for it and had been hired. She hoped the move to a totally new city would allow her to break away from her paranormal activities.

  The graveyard shift coroner’s assistant answered the phone.

  “This is Kat. Has anything come into the morgue tonight?”

  “Nothing here. Quiet night so far. I’d like to keep it that way, so don’t jinx it by asking.”

  Too late. The entire night had already been jinxed.

  “Good. I just wanted to know before I ate my lovely dinner.” T
he buzzer on the microwave rang. “Gotta go. Food’s ready.”

  “See you tomorrow, Romanovski.”

  Kat thumbed off her cell phone and shoved it into her pocket. Grabbing a hot pad, she scooped her pizza from the oven and slipped the steaming pie onto a plate. Then she turned on her police scanner. Odd that no one had heard the shots or reported anything. The bear had been dead, hadn’t it? Werecreatures didn’t hold their shifts when they died, and she’d seen it change into a man. What if it wasn’t dead but just knocked out?

  The question gnawed at her, and she shoved her plate aside. Against her better judgment, she rose, put on her jacket, and slipped her hunting gear into the pockets. She’d go check it out. If the cops arrived she could just say she’d heard it on the scanner and came to see what had gone down. No harm in that.

  Hugh Allen stood in the misty shadows watching the alley where he’d seen the supernatural fight take place. No cops had come, so he suspected the couple who left hadn’t reported the murder. They hadn’t taken anything either, which puzzled him.

  Rogue shifters normally killed to get the magic Turning Stone rings. The blonde and dark-haired man left without even inspecting the morphing form. Did they know a shifter had been killed? Or did they just run because someone had been killed?

  He pressed the light button on his watch. Two hours since the murder had occurred. Feeling enough time had passed, he started to move across the street toward the alley. A blonde stopped at the alley entrance, her hair a beacon under the street lamps. He slipped back into the darkened doorway. The woman he’d seen earlier stepped into the alley and raised her black hood over her head, causing her to melt into the shadows.

  Hugh followed her, slipping into an unlit doorway alcove. Furtively, she approached the prone body and knelt beside it. Suddenly, she stilled and stood slowly. She glanced back toward him, and he flattened deeper into the alcove depths, praying she wouldn’t see him. The seconds ticked off like an eternity as he stood stock still. She bolted past him like a skittish deer, her long legs taking her out of the alley in a matter of seconds, the trash on the littered ground whirling behind her.

  Hugh waited until she was gone. Moving to the man, he checked his left hand. The bloodstone Turning Stone ring still cradled the shifter’s finger. Kneeling, he removed the ring and pocketed it. Then he dialed 911 but not before blocking his caller ID.

  “There’s a dead man in the alley next to the Dew Drop Inn Bar and Grill,” he said when the dispatcher answered. Before the dispatcher asked any questions, Hugh hung up and went into the Dew Drop to wait for the cops.

  When he sat at the bar, a pretty brunette sashayed over. “What’ll you have, mister?”

  “I’ll take a beer and a cheeseburger.” He swiveled in the seat. “When the table in the corner empties, I’ll take that, too.”

  “Sure thing.” She drew his beer and brought it back to him then leaned her elbows on the bar, giving him a view of her cleavage. “I ain’t seen you in here before. You new to town?”

  Reluctantly, he moved his gaze up her chest to her face. “Visiting on business. My cheeseburger,” he said when she didn’t move.

  “Oh, sure thing.” Spinning on her heel, she shouted across the counter behind her. “One cheeseburger.”

  He enjoyed the view from the backside as well.

  Twisting her head in his direction, she asked, “You want the garden with that, mister? On the run?”

  “What?”

  “Pickle, tomato, lettuce, onion? Rare, medium, or well done?”

  “All of the above. Medium, please.”

  She relayed the cooking instructions to the kitchen and rotated back toward him. “I’m Lynn Jacobs. They call me LJ.” She stuck her hand out.

  “Nice to meet you, LJ.” He shook her hand. It was soft and warm, and he wondered if her lips were, too. “I’m Hugh.” Tipping his head to the side, he stared at her. “You always this friendly?”

  “Me personally? Sometimes. If we don’t have many customers.”

  He glanced around. “The place is packed.”

  “Or, if a guy seems interesting.” She gave him a crooked, flirty grin. “You look interesting to me, Hugh.”

  Something about the breathy way she caressed his name when she said it sent a spark through him.

  “How so?”

  “That Indiana Jones hat you wear, for one. And your clothes. We don’t get many snazzy dressers at the Dew Drop.”

  “Visitor from out of town. On business. Remember?”

  She stepped back and leaned against the stainless steel counter that held the coffee pot and a pie rack, tucking her arms behind her waist. The motion enhanced her well-endowed body. Hugh raked her appreciatively with his gaze.

  “So, where you from, Hugh?”

  The interrogation ended abruptly as the wail of sirens filled the bar. LJ jumped from her seductive position and bolted for the kitchen like Pavlov’s dog to the dinner bell.

  Fire chaser.

  The cook slammed a plate down on the window ledge and yelled something as the kitchen door flew shut. A cheeseburger shimmied dangerously on the dinnerware, the bun sliding sideways.

  There goes my dinner.

  A couple seconds later, the cook came out and shoveled the plate from the windowsill onto his beefy hand and placed it on the counter in front of him. “That woman is going to drive me nuts. Every time she hears a siren at the door, she runs.”

  “Away?” Hugh asked. Was she a fugitive or an illegal immigrant? He hoped not. As a federal agent he’d be obliged to turn her in. He’d rather turn her on. Which, if he was getting her signals right, would not be hard.

  “No. Toward, to find out what’s going on. If I didn’t know better I’d swear she was a cat. And you know what they say about cats.”

  “Curiosity—”

  “Killed the cat,” they said in unison.

  A few seconds later, LJ returned, eyes shining with excitement. “There’s a dead guy outside our back door.” She focused her gaze on Hugh. “Did you see anything?”

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “You just came in. I thought you might have seen something.”

  “Quit pestering the customers,” the cook ordered, “and clean those empty tables.” He rolled his eyes in a circle, exposing the bloodshot whites around the ice blue irises. “Women.”

  Sticking out the tip of her tongue at his back, LJ grabbed a wet towel. “Hey, the table you wanted is empty. I’ll clean it for you.”

  “Thanks.” Hugh grabbed his beer and burger. He waited while LJ cleaned and then he sat down. As soon as she returned to her other customers, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Delaney Ramsey.

  “Hugh Allen here, Delaney. I’ve got some news you might want to hear.”

  “Hugh, how nice to hear from you,” Delaney said. “I guess, from the tone of your voice, this isn’t a social call?”

  “I’ve been trailing a suspect who just got killed, and I think he’s one of yours.”

  “Killed by another shifter?”

  “Not sure. I think one of them, the woman, might have seen the shift happen. The other one, a fella, had injuries and she hustled him out pretty quick. The woman came back but got spooked and ran off.” He fingered the ring in his pocket. “There’s something weird about this, though. The perps didn’t take the Turning Stone ring. Don’t all shifters remove the magic rings when someone goes down?”

  “Yes, we do. Where are you, Hugh?”

  “In Cleveland. Having dinner at a hole in the wall called the Dew Drop Inn Bar and Grill. I was tracking the guy and saw what went down.”

  “I know the bar. I’m in Cleveland on business. Do the police know about this?”

  “Yeah. They’re in the alley now.”

  “
And the shifter?”

  “Dead and back to human form. Can we meet somewhere and I’ll fill you in?”

  “I’m staying at the home of a friend while I’m in town. How about coming over tonight? I’ll introduce you to the captain of detectives, Alexi Temple, my hostess.”

  “I don’t think this is a matter for regular cops.”

  “Don’t worry. She’s like me, only much better and more important. Hugh, keep this quiet. There’s a lot more going on in Cleveland nowadays than you know.”

  “Trust me, Delaney, you don’t know the half of it.”

  Chapter 3

  “Welcome, Hugh,” Delaney said when she opened the door. “Come in.”

  He dodged the giant fall wreath hanging on the door and stepped into the foyer. A scent of cinnamon hung on the air inside the house. The foyer suddenly filled with three more men and a woman.

  “This is Captain Alexi Temple and Rhys Temple, Alexi’s husband,” Delaney said, indicating the tallest man and the dark-haired woman. She pointed at the bearded, ruddy-cheeked man next. “Eli McCraigen.”

  “The Eli McCraigen?” He’d heard stories about the man and had not expected someone in his seventies.