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“Hunting.”
I rubbed Mila's ear. The pup leaned into the touch with a contented grumble. “What did she do with the bodies?”
chapter 26
STEPHEN
Ronan took a while to answer my question, but from the sudden sound of chatter to a distant roadway’s rumble, I figured he'd excused himself from whatever bar or dive he was in to gain focus or privacy.
“All corpses were to be delivered to a storage unit. More intact, better paid. He sold parts for rituals and retail, so, say, an intact vamp's fang was worth a good deal more than one broken off during the fight. Gen had more finesse than I did.” He laughed. “And about a hundred less scars. She sure was something, wasn’t she?”
Even though my grandmother had kept secrets and done things I wasn't proud of, she was still my grandmother. Part of me loved hearing about her younger years, however dark. Mila and I warmed our toes beside the glowing flame as I listened. “Did you ever witness the shaman performing rituals?”
“Yours alone. Feathers, ash and chants brought distant thunder. Don't see how it worked, but here you are a grown woman.”
A pair of Caelan's deputies walked past the fire. It was good Calico had tall fences and the nearest neighbor didn't have an upstairs window facing her backyard.
“What’s his address?” I asked.
“You know,” Ronan said in a tired tone. “The reason I first called was to see you skip town. I can't let send you into the lion’s den. Gen would rise from her grave.”
“I’ve no choice.” I glanced at the pup beside me, then off in the direction of my house. “I have family.”
“Go on up north and see what this world did to your family before you go destroying whatever you’ve built.”
I watched Caelan consult with one of the newcomers and a recently-turned-human werewolf. “I'm allied with two sheriffs,” I told Ronan. “I can put them on your trail.”
“They'll find the name I gave you,” he snapped. “I'm not a fool, Rhetta. Neither are you. Pay respects to your parents.”
“Twenty minutes ago I watched a werewolf decapitate man.” I touched the dried blood sprayed across my second shirt of the night. "I don't need to see my parents to understand what happened to them. I know I'm in deep, but until a shark drags me down, I'm staying alive. A lifeline, however small or unnecessary you may believe that information is, will help me stay afloat.”
“Might be a gator.”
“Hmm?”
“Oil and swamp water runs through your shaman’s veins. Came from the old south, where the noon air's so thick you can cut it with a knife, where the gators are invisible a foot from shore. Last I heard he'd moved back there after the death of a voodoo queen, wiped out his enemies and became the Second Head, a high priest of L’enfer Requins. You ever heard them? I got some info I can send ya.”
“Yes, but send away,” I said.
Ingram Hayes had to be the shaman in question, but if he’d been the man who saved Rhetta’s life, how old was he? He looked young in every picture Caelan had provided.
“If he's come back this way, I can't figure why except for your grandma.”
I straightened. “What do you mean?”
“Bringing a person back from the brink comes at a steep price. In Gen's case, she didn't have the money or power to give the shaman anything but herself. After you were pulled from the ashes, a right grimdark phoenix you were, she fell forever in his debt. Collecting monsters, doing the jobs no one else could handle. She quit when time caught her, but left years unpaid. I'm thinking he wants a new servant to pick up where she left off.”
“How'd you figure out he was back?”
“I may not hunt these days, but I've got feelers in the community. There's been activity at his old place. Sightings, sounds, lights where they ought not to be.” He stopped for a truck to roar past. Near a freeway? I wondered. “Tell you what, I can call a buddy of mine and he'll help you.”
“You can help me by turning over his address.”
“I don't have the exact location. Somewhere out in the North Country.”
“Tell me, please.”
“Going there might be the last thing you do, Rhetta.”
