Moon Sworn (Riley Jenson Guardian 9)

"A shadowy figure wearing a mask, gloves, and some sort of shoe covering."

I raised my eyebrows. "Surely not a demon costume?"

Jack half smiled. "No. It was just a black mask and padded clothing, but the idea is the same. If they leave no prints, and you can't see their face or body shape, it's hard to make any sort of ID."

Quinn closed the folder and pushed it back to Jack. "If he is behind these murderers for hire, he surely wouldn't be stupid enough to use his own planes or helicopters."

"He might if it was an emergency and there was no obvious link back to him. Daskill owns a private jet and helicopter charter service catering to remote areas. The helicopter Harris downed was hired by one Harry Jones - who is not the vamp and who actually doesn't exist."

"Charter services these days have to have cameras and facial recognition software installed in their offices, so what did that come up with?"

"Again, nothing. We suspect he might have been a Helki wolf, because the one capture we got of his face showed their distinctive eyes."

I nodded. If you were going to use fake ID, then what better person to use than someone who could physically alter their human shape? Not so much their size or actual shape, but their physical characteristics. Hair, minor facial shifts, teeth, easy stuff like that. They could also change their eye color, but that apparently took more effort and drained their energy faster. "So what's the plan? We have no obvious connection to the man, just our suspicions."

And Jack never moved on suspicions alone. Well, rarely, anyway.

He gave me the sort of smile that a shark might have a heartbeat before he attacked. "Every bad guy makes one mistake. In Daskill's case, he keeps records."

I raised an eyebrow. "I'd imagine such records would be extremely well protected."

"They are, but we have some of the world's best hackers in our employ." He glanced Sal's way. "Sal, for instance, is a genius at hacking into security-sensitive areas."

"Which I've just completed." She glanced over her shoulder. "We now control Daskill's security systems in both his house and his Melbourne office."

"Excellent. And the computer files?"

"Randy is still downloading. There's a lot of information, and it's all coded." She paused, glancing briefly at the screen and flicking a button. The screen divided into four, each one showing a different section of what looked to be a grand mansion. "Initial investigations on one of the earliest files downloaded indicate intensive records concerning the movements of a man who was found murdered three days after his release from jail. If he isn't the brains behind this scheme, he's certainly involved."

"And that is all we need to go in and get him." Jack glanced at me. "Daskill has been going home to have lunch with his new wife every day between one and two-thirty - "

"Obviously he doesn't trust the new missus not to take a lover," I murmured. "Which says a lot about the power of his loving. Or the lack of it."

Maybe he just fancies his new missus, Quinn commented, eyes twinkling as he glanced at me. Hell, when the company is fully transferred to Melbourne, expect me to be breaking up a boring day by coming home for a quick bit of loving quite frequently.

That's because you hang out with a werewolf, and the randiness has finally rubbed off.

"The reason doesn't matter, just the result," Jack said. "He has a security force of eight men who rotate on twelve-hour shifts, as well as the cameras."

"Having eight security guards on standby is a bit of overkill, isn't it?" Rhoan said, frowning. "Even for a man whose first wife was murdered."

"They work in teams of four," Jack said, "which makes the numbers more even. And given he's either in charge of, or involved with, an organization that runs a stable of some extremely well-trained hit men and women, then no, I wouldn't think his precautions are over the top."

"If we move on Daskill, that stable of killers may just melt into the woodwork."

Jack glanced at me. "He's the brains and the money behind it, so he's the one we need to take out first. The others can be found in time."

Fair enough. "Then what's the plan?" He obviously had one, because he wouldn't have called Quinn here otherwise.

"We're going in at one-thirty. Quinn will take out the guards, as neither myself nor any of the other guardians is able to venture out at that hour."

Even Quinn was pushing it.

I'll be fine, he said. At worst, it'll give me a nice tan for our wedding night.

You'll be naked on your wedding night. No one is going to care about your tan.

I'll be wearing trousers. I may not be quite as old-fashioned as I used to be, but Liander is not going to get the joy of a full frontal. Not when I'm getting hitched.